1920-06-04

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List of lawyers in the province of Quebec, who act as Public Representatives. -Hon. Mr. Sifton.

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Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Minister of the Interior) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 153 (from the Senate), respecting the Director of Coal Operations. He said: I would like to defer giving an explanation of the object of this Bill until it comes up for second reading; but the passage of the measure will be expedited if it receives the first reading to-day.
Motion agreed to, and Bill read a first time.

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Bill No. 154 for the relief of Albert Ernest Bulley.-Mr. Fripp.
Bill No. 155 for the relief of Beatrice Booth Gendron.-Mr. Fripp.

Rt. Hon. Sir ROBERT BORDEN (Prime Minister):: I should like to say to the
House that on account of the Minister of Finance being very actively engaged in very important matters, apart from the Budget, he will not be able to go on with the Budget resolutions as the first order of business to-day. I spoke to the leader of the Opposition about taking up Order No. 12- which is merely for a reference to a committee-Order No. 25, the second reading of a Bill to amend the Yukon Placer Mining Act, and Order No. 10, concerning a Bill that has been unanimously reported by the Select Standing Committee on Agriculture, I do not think any of these matters are controversial.


Mr. JACQUES BUREAU (Three Rivers):: May I ask the Prime Minister a question? Can he inform me whether or not electricity

and gas will come under the heading of manfactured products in the new taxation? I ask the question because I have received telegrams from the firms that are selling electricity and gas in my town, who wish to know if they are to charge the one per cent tax on their bills which go out on the first of the month. I promised that I would ask the question the first thing at the opening of the House to-day, and I am now carrying out that promise.


Robert Laird Borden: Would my hon. friend be good enough to ask the Minister of Finance that question?


Jacques Bureau: I thought perhaps the
Prime Minister would know.


Robert Laird Borden: The subject is really one that comes under the Minister of Finance, and without having the resolutions before me I would hardly like to give an answer to my hon. friend.



CRIMINAL CODE AMENDMENT ACT- (FRENCH VERSION).

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On the Order, House again in committee on Bill No. 131 (from the Senate) to amend the Criminal Code (French version).
Rt. Hon. C. J. DOHERTY (Minister of Justice):: I beg to move with the permission of the House, pursuant to the understanding come to on Friday, that this order be discharged and that the said Bill be referred to a special committee for consideration and report, and that the Minister of Justice, and Messieurs Lemieux, Mac'kie (Edmonton), Vien and Denis be members of said special committee.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

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On motion of Hon. Mr. Meighen Bill No. 1 hi to amend the Yukon Placer Mining Act w r s read a second time, and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Boivin in the Chair.
On section 1-Prior Rights protected:
Jacques Bureau: Would the minister make a general statement with respect to the whole Bill? Very few of us, of course, are familiar with the conditions in the Yukon -except perhaps the hon. member from YuKon (Mr. Thompson)-and therefore we should like to know what is the purport of the Bill.
Mr. MEilGHEN:	I can make a general
statement. There is little use explaining

the first clause because it is rendered necessary in order to give full effect to the operating and substantial clauses that follow. The purpose of the Bill is this: Its design is to supply additional incentive to placer mining in the Yukon territory. When the Yukon was opened up, and for many years thereafter, placer mining was vigorously prosecuted because the awards under the then conditions were ample. They now are not so great as they were at that time, and it is sought by this Bill to amplify them in the following manner:
To adopt the practice of issuing leases-that is to say leases of territory along creeks where placer mining is carried on of considerable extent;-practically a reservation of that territory for the applicant in order that he may prospect it and if he finds that it is in his interest to stake claims, to do so. The territory proposed to be granted in respect of land already worked over-that is land already taken up, cancelled or abandoned-is five miles in length on any creek, and the time allowed is one year. The prospector is bound to expend at least a thousand dollars in that year on prospecting operations, and if he does o he is entitled to a renewal, if he desires, for another year, and under similar circumstances for a third. He pays $25 per mile, or fraction of a mile, rental for that prospecting lease. Then in respect of the class of claim already worked over, he is at liberty to stake within those three years any area he wishes, or rather as many claims as he desires. ' Each claim is about 23 acres in maximum.


Jacques Bureau: In that particular location.
Mr. MBIGiHEN:	In that particular location. When he gets the claim he, of course, abides by the regulations in the usual way. Noiw as regards new areas- that is to say creeks not already applied for, forfeited or abandoned, or not worked over-he is entitled not to five miles but to one mile. He is entitled to renewals in the usual way-or rather in the way I have just defined as respects the other class- but he cannot stake the whole thing. He can only obtain a discovery stake,-that is to say three times the ordinary stake-the discovery stake being one that has always been given. Where a man is in the position of the discoverer of the area he gets three times the ordinary stake. 'So in this class of creeks already worked over, that is all he can obtain. He pays the same rental as I stated before for the other class, viz., $25 per mile or fraction of a mile.
Then the Bill provides as well for the method of measurement, a rather technical definition which could be explained much better by the hon. member for the Yukon. Indeed, greater detail could be given by him, if necessary, as to the main provisions of the Bill and as to the necessity, therefor.


Mr. ALFRED THOMPSON (Yukon):: Perhaps the committee will permit me at this stage to elucidate the object of the Bill a little further, although the minister has given the basic reasons for the amendments. It is now over twenty years since gold was first discovered in the Klondike. A very large area of the gold-bearing gravels has been worked, many creeks have been prospected, and many worked, and others prospected but not worked and subsequently abandoned, which claims have reverted to the Crown. Now we have quite a large area of ground in that country containing goldbearing gravels of this character; ground that is not sufficiently rich in gold contents to be worked by the ordinary placer mining methods or by the - individual miner by staking individual claims.
But by placing these gravels in larger groups it is hoped that it may be possible to have them prospected by what is known -as the core drill method, involving the use of machine drills, as opposed to the ordinary shaft sinking method. These amendments were suggested by a non-partisan organization known as the Yukon Development League, and it is hoped that their adoption will give an impetus to the further prospecting of this low grade gravel on abandoned creeks. So far as virgin ground is concerned, as the minister has stated, the leases cover only one mile for a term of one year, and within that mile the prospector can secure at the end of the term only one discovery claim of the same size as he would be able to obtain if he were to make a discovery on any other ground upon which claims did not already exist.


Jacques Bureau: Will the hon. member explain how he expects to get better results by allowing five miles to be included in a claim instead of the area allowed heretofore?	.


Alfred Thompson: This low
grade ground can only be prospected by the use of expensive power drills, and the gold contents of any one claim were not such as to warrant their continued operation, otherwise the claims would not have been abandoned. The idea is to give a prospector a larger claim so that he will be

able to secure the necessary capital to embark on this somewhat expensive prospecting.


Jacques Bureau: You allow him to consolidate the smaller claims?


Alfred Thompson: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 2-Lease to prospect for gold, application and evidence required, etc.
Jacques Bureau: Is the size of a discovery claim 23 acres?


Mr. MEIGHEN:: Three times the ordinary size.


Alfred Thompson: 1,500 feet
along a creek.


Jacques Bureau: I see that when an application is made for a lease the Gold Commissioner of the Yukon shall satisfy himself that the applicant has the means to carry on the necessary prospecting. Did that provision exist under the old law?


Alfred Thompson: No. Under the present law a man may stake a claim 500 feet long, or if he discovers a new creek he may stake a discovery claim 1,500 feet long. The Gold 'Commissioner must satisfy himself that the people who apply for these leases are able to carry out the conditions so that the ground will be prospected, the underlying principle being that ground now idle may not be tied up.


Jacques Bureau: But, on the other hand, power is left absolutely in the hands of the Gold Commissioner to determine whether or not leases shall be granted to any applicants. He is the sole judge and may refuse an applicant a lease by merely stating that the applicant has not furnished satisfactory evidence that he has the means to fulfil the conditions of the lease. Does not the minister and the member for the Yukon think that this is a rather absolute power to leave in the hands of one man, especially in a mining country?


Arthur Meighen: The Gold Commissioner already has other powers just as wide as this power. There is no other way of administering the Act. The Gold Commissioner is too far away for any appeal powers to be exercised over him, and those directly interested, as represented in the Yukon Development League, are quite ready to submit to this provision. As the hon. member is aware, the Gold Commissioner acted for many years as Commissioner of the Yukon.


Jacques Bureau: But like ourselves he will have to get out some day-he will die, poor fellow.


Arthur Meighen: Then another man
equally as good will be appointed as long as present conditions obtain.


Jacques Bureau: I thought you were going to stay "as long as the present Government continues." That is where I get suspicious !


Arthur Meighen: I do not think any other method is possible, for we cannot maintain a court there for the purpose indicated; the Act has to be administered by one man only. As the hon. member knows, we reduced the officials there about two years ago, by more than half, I think.


Mr. J. H. SINCLAIR (Guysborough):: In my province, at all events, a man who goes out to engage in prospecting requires nothing more than his loaf of bread, a powder horn and a pick; the best coal mines in the province have been discovered by men so equipped. I would not like to see an Act passed which would have the effect of shutting out the gold prospector. Why is it necessary to confine the application to men of wealth or means?


Arthur Meighen: It does not confine the application to men of wealth; it simply provides that before a man can get a lease he must show he is able to do something on the ground. It would be bad policy to grant to any applicant a lease, thereby tying the territory up, if he has no means at all of utilizing that territory. When the Yukon was new and the mining was *carried on under the old method, the prospector did not require any capital, because the gold was there and could be mined by that method. But these worked-over claims can be mined only by the use of these power drills. It is not we who compel the presence of capital; it is nature; consequently, to avoid tying up claims by those who cannot work them we simply say: Show us that you are able to work them, or show us that you have associated with you men who can work them, and that is sufficient.


John Howard Sinclair: That seems to be a very good reason. But the prospector has to come back to the commissioner and show that he has done something during the year; it does not occur to me that it is necessary to impose this condition in the first year. Very often men who have not much means can discover a gold mine. A great deal, of course, depends upon the administration of the Act. If it is rigid, some worthy people may be altogether shut out

from this work; if liberal, the results may 'be more satisfactory. I am not opposing the Bill; I simply make these remarks byway of suggestion. I understand that this Bill applies to placer mining. Is any other kind of mining carried on in the Yukon?


Alfred Thompson: Yes, we mine silver, copper and coal. We mined tungsten during the war and there are large antimony deposits there. This Bill refers only to placer mining and this particular amendment to ground that has already been prospected and abandoned, has reverted to the Crown, and has been lying idle for years. The amendment is intended to devise a method under which these areas can be prospected by the use of power drills and acquired and worked by larger groups where larger capital is required. It is the prospecting itself that requires the money. This ground has already been prospected by the ordinary methods, and enough gold has not been found to warrant the development of the property. By using power drills and making these drill holes at various intervals throughout these claims, possibly getting a group of claims together, it is hoped that ground which is now idle will be made to produce.


Mr. CAHILL:: And how much money
would it be necessary for a man to have before the commissioner would allow him to take up a claim?


Alfred Thompson: It is hoped that a group of placer miners will be able to say to the Gold Commissioner: We are willing to pay this $25 and to do $1,000 worth of work per mile on this ground. The power drills cost from $4,000 to $5,000.


Frank S. Cahill: Can they be rented?


Alfred Thompson: Well, some of these
drills are not being used just now and in a limited way those who desire to engage in the work might be able to rent them. A group of prospectors might be able to use their own labour and sink shafts by the ordinary methods. It is not absolutely necessary that power drills should be used, but it is expected that they will chiefly be used for this purpose.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time, and passed.

[Stage Direction]
House again in Committee on Bill No. 104, to amend the Inspection and Sale Act (as amended by Select Standing Committee
on Agriculture).-Hon. Mr. Tolmie-Mr. Boivin in the Chair.
On section 1-sections prescribing sizes of apple barrels, fruit 'boxes, etc., penalty section, tand section authorizing minister to appoint inspectors, etc., repealed.
Mr. FIELDING:: I notice that clause 326 provides that the Minister of Agriculture may make regulations for purposes that are set forth in the section. The other day the point was taken that perhaps we are calling too often upon the Governor in Council to make regulations; but as in this section penalties aT-e imposed and as these are regulations which really form part of the Criminal law of the country, I would suggest -to my hon. friend that his regulations should be subject to the approval of the Governor in Council.


Mr. TOLMIE:: I have no objection to that.


William Stevens Fielding: I am making this suggestion only because the clause is penal in its character. I notice also that in this clause -the -expression is used "packages containing fruit for -sale in Canada." Is it -quite certain, when a package is made, that the frui't i-s to be- sold in- Canada or elsewhere? There is no distinction. A man may make a box intended to contain fruit for sale in Oan-ada and he may sell it in Europe, or he may make a box to contain fru-i-t for sale in Europe and he may sell it in Canada. Will -there not be a difficulty in carrying out the regulation?


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Under this Bill we control entirely the nature of packages for sale in Canada; but in the event of an exporter showing to the department that it is necessary to have a special form of package to meet the requirements of som-e market to whi-ch Canada wishes to export, then if his claim has merit, permission will be granted 'to him to ship in a special package to m-eet the requirements of the -market in which he wishes to sell.


William Stevens Fielding: The minister has assented to a suggestion of mine-I did not move it-'that his regulation should be subject to the approval of the Governor in Council. I understood the minister would make the motion.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: I move to amend clause 326 by adding after the words "Minister of Agriculture," in the first line thereof, the following words "subject to the approval of the Governor in Council."


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to, and sedtion as amended agreed to.
Bill reported, read the 'third time and passed.	*

[Stage Direction]
The House again in Committee of Ways and Means-iSir Henry Drayton (Minister oif Finance) -'Mr. Boivin in the Chair.

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Resolved that it is expedient to amend Schedule A to the Customs Tariff, 1907, and to strike thereout tariff items 172 and 483, the several enumerations of goods respectively, and the several rates of duties of Customs, if any, set opposite each of the said items, and to provide that the following Items, enumerations and rates of duties be inserted in said Schedule A.:
Tariff Items	-	British Preferential Tariff.	Intermed- iate Tariff.	General Tariff.172	Books, viz.:-Books on the application of science to industries of all kinds, including books on agriculture, horticulture, forestry, fish and fishing, mining, metallurgy, architecture, electric and other engineering, carpentry, shipbuilding, mechanism, dyeing, bleaching, tanning, weaving and other mechanic arts, and similar industrial books; bibles, prayer-books, psalm and hymn-books, religious tracts, and Sunday school lesson pictures.	Free.	Free.	Free.483	Stereotypes, electrotypes and celluloids of books, and bases and matrices and copper shells for the same, whether composed wholly or in part of metal or celluloid	Free.	Free.	Free.698a	Typewriters and writing appliances specially adapted for use only by the blind, under regulations prescribed by the Minister of Customs and Inland Revenue	Free.	Free.	Free.2.	Resolved that it is expedient to amendChapter 3 of the Acts of 1915 and Chapter 47 of the Acts of 1919, and to strike thereout section 3 of Chapter 3 of the Acts of 1915 and sections 3 and 4 of Chapter 47 of the Acts of 1919.	.3. Resolved that it	is expedient	toprovide that the provisions of the foregoing resolutions shall be deemed	to
have come into operation on the nineteenth day of May, one thousand nine hundred and twenty, and to apply and to have applied to all goods mentioned in the foregoing resolutions imported or taken out of warehouse for consumption on and after that day, and to have also applied to such goods previously imported for which no entry for consumption was made before that day.
William Stevens Fielding: What is the effect of clause 2?


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: The effect of thait is to repeal entirely the 7% per cent war tax.


Mr. JACOBS:: Were the articles mentioned in items 172. 483 and 698a not on the free list before?


Henry Lumley Drayton: No. The old section putting articles on the free list gave a preference to books and printed material in languages other than English and French. We are doing away with that preference and .putting all the languages on the same footing.


Samuel William Jacobs: It puts them all on the free list.


Henry Lumley Drayton: It puts them all on the same footing. Everything you have on that list is absolutely free. The old section read:
also including books printed in any language other than the English and French languages or in any two languages not being English or French or in any three or more languages.
The effect of this change is to limit the list of absolutely free articles in such a way as to place all publications in any language other than French or English on .same basis as those printed in English or Erench.


William Stevens Fielding: You want to admit the German language.


Samuel William Jacobs: The war must be over.


Jacques Bureau: If I may digress for a moment; before the Minister of Finance came into the House I asked a question of the Prime Minister the reply to which I had 'been requested to send by telegraph or otherwise to a correspondent. My question was whether electricity and gas would be regarded as manufactured products. There are men engaged in the business of supplying electric light and electricity for domestic purposes, and this being the end of the

month they want to send out their hills,
. but until they have this information they do not know where they are at.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My view of the resolution, and I hope the House will adopt that view, is that neither gas or electricity oug*ht to he taxed, and that no tax will be levied upon them.


Jacques Bureau: If in view of the statement of the minister these men send out their bills without the one per cent added, they will not be subject, if the House determines otherwise than as the minister has stated, to the penalty which may be imposed under the law.


Henry Lumley Drayton: No.


William Stevens Fielding: The change in the item respecting stereotypes is of the same nature, I presume, as the change in regard to hooks.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Absolutely the same.


William Stevens Fielding: It leaves out "English and French languages" and applies to all.
Resolution reported and concurred in.
Sir Henry Drayton thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. , to amend the Customs Tariff Act, 1907.
Motion agreed to and Bill read the first time.



WAYS AND MEANS.


[Stage Direction]
House again in Committee of Ways and Means, Mr. Boivin in the Chair, on the following proposed resolution:
Resolved, That it is expedient to amend The Business Profits War Tax Act, 1916, and the amendments thereto, and to provide:
1.	That the profits earned in any business during any accounting period ending in the year one thousand nine hundred and twenty which do not exceed ten per cent per annum upon the capital employed in such business shall be exempt from the tax prescribed by the Act;
That upon any such profits exceeding ten per cent per annum and not exceeding fifteen per cent per annum there shall be paid a tax equal to.twenty per cent of such profits;	[DOT]
That upon any such profits exceeding fifteen per cent per annum and not exceeding twenty per cent per annum there shall be paid a tax equal to thirty per cent of such profits;
That upon any such profits exceeding twenty per cent per annum and not exceeding thirty per cent per annum there shall be paid a tax equal to fifty per cent of such profits;
That upon any such profits exceeding thirty per cent per annum there shall be paid a tax equal to sixty per cent of such profits;
That in the case of a business owned by an incorporated company with a capital of not less 198
than twenty-five thousand dollars and under fifty thousand dollars employed in such business, there shall be paid a tax of twenty per cent of the amount by which the profits earned in such business during any accounting period ending in the year one thousand nine hundred and twenty exceeded ten per cent per annum;
2.	That in respect to any business liable to taxation under the said Act having a capital of less than fifty thousand dollars the rates of taxation set forth in section three of the said Act as amended by chapter six of the Statutes of 1917 shall apply in respect of the 1917 and 1918 accounting periods, if twenty per cent or more of such profits have been derived from the manufacture or dealing in munitions of war or materials or supplies of any kind for war purposes;
3.	That the period during which the said Act is to be in operation be extended for one year, and that section twenty-six of the said Act be amended by substituting the word "twenty" for the word "nineteen" in the third line thereof, and by substituting the word "seventy-two" for the word "sixty" in the fourth line of the proviso in the said section.
Henry Lumley Drayton: Owing to a typographical error in the sixth paragraph the words "owned by an incorporated company" have crept in. The original resolution did not contain these words. They add nothing to the meaning and I beg to move that they flbe deleted.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
William Stevens Fielding: The phrase "such
profits" is intended to mean only the excess, I presume?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Yes.


William Stevens Fielding: I quite understand that that is the intention, but is it clear on reading the clause.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That is the intention, and the Bill will make it absolutely clear.


William Stevens Fielding: I think it is capable of being misunderstood, and I am only drawing my hon. friend's attention to it.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I thank my
hon. friend. The Bill will make the inten-tention absolutely clear.


William Stevens Fielding: The words "such excessive profits " might be helpful.


Frank S. Cahill: The tax is figured at each point, between 10 and 15 per cent, 15 and 20 per cent, 20 and 30 per cent, and upon the excess over 30 per cent?


Henry Lumley Drayton: That is right.


Samuel William Jacobs: The other evening in my
remarks on the Budget I drew the attention of the minister and the House to the fact that in many cases the amount whidh is charged by the Government under the excess



profits tax is very much, larger than the amount charged on a business with a capitalization twice as large. I instanced the case of a business with a capital of $1,000,000, where a profit of 50 per cent, or $500,000, was made. The owner of that business would be required to pay to the Government, under the new proposals $185,000, while if the capital employed was only $500,000 the tax would be very much greater. I do not know whether I make myself perfectly clear, but my point is this: where a business with a capital of $1,000,000 is being carried on and a profit of $500,000 is made, the Government takes an excess profits tax of $185,000, whereas if the capital employed is only $500,000, and $500,000 profit is made, the amount to be paid to the Government under the new proposals would be about $250,000. So that we have this anomalous situation, that where two companies both make a profit of $500,000 each, the one which has a capital of $500,000 pays into the coffers of the Government $250,000 and the other with a capital of $1,000,000 pays only $185,000. I think that is a glaring anomaly which the minister should carefully consider with a view to affording some relief.


Henry Lumley Drayton: The hon. member has pointed out one of the anomalies and direct injustices of all these excess profits taxes. But they are all formed on the same basis. They are not formed with any regard to the amount of effort or anything else that is required in order' to obtain a given result. In all taxes of this kind, the one consideration is the amount of money actually employed, and there is no doubt that where you have an active, energetic management which, by extra work and superior business acumen, turns over its capital four or five times a year as compared with another that turns its capital over only once or twice a year, the same amount of capital is utilized to a far greater extent and with greater advantage to the country; and while such a management must be penalized under any system, there is this to be said, that the anomaly is now far less marked than formerly.


Samuel William Jacobs: May I point out to the
minister a concrete case which I have in mind, it having been brought to my attention. A business in Montreal has a capital of $500,000. It borrows from the bank another $500,000, so that it is working on a million dollars. It makes on this million dollars a profit of $500,000. Fifty per cent of that is paid into the Government's coffers, that is to say, $250,000. Another busi-
)Mr. Jacobs.]
ness does not require to borrow a cent from the bank. It has a million dollars of its own, and because it has not to borrow from the bank it merely pays into the treasury $185,000. Why should a man who has only half, a million dollars and borrows a like sum from the bank have to pay $65,000 more than the man who happens to have a million dollars of his own money invested. This is a glaring injustice. It is not right and it cannot be justified in any way by the Government, so far as I can see. Why not make both pay $250,000? I am not urging for a moment that the man who has to pay $250,000 should not pay it; but why should a man who has a million dollars of his own and is not under any necessity to borrow from the bank not pay $250,000 the same as the other man?


Henry Lumley Drayton: That is another illustration of the difficulty of working out anything like an absolutely fair basis. There is, however, a real difference between the two cases. In the first instance the company have collected and invested permanently their own money; in the other case they are able to get hold of only half the amount they require to look after their business, and therefore in regard to the other half they have to make their business a direct charge to that extent upon the public credits afforded by the banks of the country. Loans are always changing and fluctuating. They do not represent money really invested in the business and therefore are not capital. Let me point out, however, that the business such as my hon. friend speaks of is protected to this extent, that the full amount of the interest which they pay is deducted from their profit, being looked upon as an expense. If they pay 6 or 7 per cent interest it is deducted.


Samuel William Jacobs: That is to say, if they borrow $500,000 from the bank, $35,000 interest ;s deducted before a penny is paid to the Government. But what about the $250,000 of actual net profit made irrespective of the $35,000. My hon. friend does not seem to realize that the man who is able to get half a million dollars from the bank in these days of stress and strain deserves some consideration at the hands of the Government. He requires to 'be a clever man to do that, and after he has succeeded in doing it and has $500,000 in his possession, he is mulcted to the extent of $250,000. Surely the Government does not persist in this course, because to my mind it is one of the most glaring injustices of the

whole Budget, and there should be some relief.


Henry Lumley Drayton: He is a very
fortunate man who manages to make such a large return upon the sum of $500,000.


Samuel William Jacobs: Not on $500,000; on a million.


Henry Lumley Drayton: No; his own
money is only $500,000.


Samuel William Jacobs: The amount invested is a million.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Let me say that I do not attempt to defend the business profits tax as a matter of principle. It was an absolute necessity, and after all it afforded one rough and ready way, and a fairly effective way of recovering to the nation exorbitant profits. It would be entirely improper to change that tax this year, when every single thing that could have been passed on to the public has been passed on, and the business has been conducted as it was under the Act which is now in force. So far as next year is concerned, I think that hon. gentlemen will agree that we have gone a long way towards removing the objections that have been raised to the Act.


Samuel William Jacobs: Do I understand that the minister promises that next year the statute will be repealed?


Henry Lumley Drayton: I never like
promising anything which I know I cannot do. I am making no promises, but the taxes of next year, under these proposed resolutions, are on a materially lower plane than the taxes which will be collected this year or those that were collected last year.


Samuel William Jacobs: I understand that the
minister admits that the system is a rough and ready one.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: In reading over the
Business Profits Tax Act this morning I notice that there are certain exemptions which will be continued under the new Bill. For instance, all companies or associations, 90 per cent of whose capital is owned by a province or a municipality, are exempt from the provisions of this measure. I think that in certain cases this constitutes a discrimination which is unfair. Take the question of electricity, to which my hon. friend (Mr. Bureau) referred a few moments ago. In the province from which I come the service is performed by privately owned companies. It is not my intention to discuss the merits of public ownership or of private ownership; In my province we are 198J
satisfied with the system that is in force; and as was shown in an article published in Toronto Saturday Night of last week, the consumers of electricity in the city of Montreal who are served by privately owned companies are paying a less price than the consumers in the city of Toronto. What I wish to say is this: The advocates of public ownership generally contend, as one of their main arguments, that no privileges should be granted to anybody. Well, there should be no privileges in this instance. I say that the consumers or the sellers of electricity-in any part of the country whether the enterprise is owned by a province or by a municipality or by private company-should be treated in the same way, and should pay the same taxation to the federal treasury. I have nothing to say against the Hydro-Electric Commission of Ontario-on the contrary, I hope it will be very successful-but I submit that that commission which is selling the same article that is being sold by privately owned companies in Quebec, should be subject to the same taxation as those private companies are subject to. I think that it is only fair and just that it should be so, especially when we recollect the competition that is going on with a view of attracting industries. All sections of the country are inviting industries to come and locate in their respective localities, with the promise of power for their development, and there is no doubt that where exemption from taxation is in force it gives an advantage to that particular section of country. I say that taxation should be the same in all sections of the country; the same article should be taxed in the same way throughout the country, and the consumers of power, or of any other article, should be dealt with in the same way no matter in what part of Canada they may be. Therefore I submit that this exemption should be eliminated from the Bill.


The CHAIRMAN:: Shall clause 1 carry?


Jacques Bureau: No, Mr. Chairman. In my opinion the remarks of my hon. friend from Quebec East are justified. We know that there are two classes of concerns distributing electrical power in Eastern Canada. There is the Hydro-Electric Power Commission, which is owned by the Ontario Government, and in the province of Quebec there are privately owned companies, and the patrons of the latter are supplied with the electricity at a cheaper rate than is the case in Ontario. Now, what do the respective consumers have to put up in con-

neetion with the excess profits tax? I am not desirous of arguing against publicly owned enterprises-there are arguments enough on other grounds-but let me point out that in round figures last year the Montreal Light, Heat and Power Consolidated paid to the Government $466,043.27, the Shawinigan Falls Company, $151,000, the Southern Canada Power Company, $4,000, the Laurentide Power Company, $31,000, and the Quebec Railway, Light, Heat and Power Company, $9,000. Here is practically the sum of $750,000 paid into the Federal Exchequer by these companies as excess profits whereas the Hydro-Electric Commission does not pay a cent. That constitutes a discrimination which is unfair to privately owned companies. Let me illustrate to you how it works. I remember that during the war the English Forgings Company went to Toronto and located, although the Shawinigan Power Company offered them cheaper power-power delivered at the outside wall of the proposed building- for nothing, whereas the Hydro-Electric made a charge of $80,000. Experts were also obtained to show what the salvage of the buildings would be at tide-water as compared with an inland port, and I think the difference in favour of the former amounted to from one million and three-quarters to two millions. There is a decided unfairness in such a form of discrimination when public ownership is competing against private ownership. I say it is not fair to exempt the producers of electricity in one province from taxation, and in other provinces make them contribute to the public exchequer. Suppose the capitalization of these companies were such as to entitle the federal exchequer to a million or two million dollars in taxation? Well, a provincially or municipally owned company would be exempt from this taxation, and the people in the rest of the counfry would have to make it up. I say that the burden of taxation in such a case as this ought not to be taken away from a particular province and imposed on other provinces.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I think we are just a little at cross purposes in connection with this matter, and I fear my hon. friends do not quite appreciate the real position. There is no tax on electricity; there is no tax on any consumer or any producer of electricity anywhere.


Jacques Bureau: Producers.


Henry Lumley Drayton: At the present time we are talking about the excess business profits tax; and it makes no differ-

ence whatever, as a matter of fact, whether the exemption be retained or not. There will be no taxes whatever paid by the Hydro, they are not running it to make excess profits or, in fact, to make profits at all; they are merely running the enterprise so that the investment will be carried and the consumer obtain the electrical product which he consumes at cost. Let us remember that this tax that we are talking about is merely an excess profits tax, so that there is absolutely nothing that you could assess against the Hydro-Electric Commission.


Jacques Bureau: Who benefits by it?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Further, it is
not a question of benefiting this section or that section, nor does the incidence result in benefiting this section or that section. The only people that are benefited one way or another or that are hurt one way or another, are the shareholders who have been getting a profit, which has been defined to be an excessive profit, during the war period, and therefore have to pay something out of those excessive profits. Now there are no shareholders that can be hit in the Hydro-Electric-there are no shareholders obtaining any profits. Again, it is not any particular section that is hit. The shareholders of the Shawinigan Company do not live in Shawinigan, they live all over the Dominion, and there are probably as many, if not more, shareholders of that company in Ontario as in Quebec. But it is those individuals who are entitled to the excess profits who suffer rather than the consumers of electricity. Indeed, as the hon. gentleman pointed out at the commencement of his remarks, if it be true that power is supplied cheaper by the Shawinigan .Company than by the Hydro, then if there is anything in the argument that the section which has the cheapest power is helped as against other sections the section served by the Shawinigan Company has the advantage.


Jacques Bureau: My statement is from
Saturday Night of May 29.


Henry Lumley Drayton: This tax does not enter into the cost of electricity to the consumer, because it is merely the excess profite that are subject to the tax. It is entirely in the hands of the directors of a company to say whether they are going to insist on getting excess profits out of which they will pay something to the general public. There is also no difference of taxation to the extent of discriminating in favour of any particular section, because

all the consumer is interested in is the price he pays, and there is no tax on the current he buys. The costs of the Shawini-gan Power Company are not advanced five cents by this tax; and the profits of the Hydro Commission would be no greater and no less whether the tax applied to them or not. If this tax were imposed on the amount of electricity used by the consumer, so that the cost to him was increased in these sections and was reduced in those sections, then I think my hon. friends point would be perfectly correct. But over and above all these considerations, I do not think that the Crown, acting in the right of the Dominion, has ever yet thought that it had power to tax the Crown in the right of the provinces.


Jacques Bureau: The Hydro Commission
could be taxed the same as the Intercolonial Railway Commission has been sued heretofore. It is only a fiction, anyway.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I think my hon. friend will agree with me when I say that that commission-[DOT]


Jacques Bureau: The principle is right.


Henry Lumley Drayton: - acting as it does for the Ontario Government and supported as it is entirely by grants from the Ontario Government and by income received from the municipalities, has its property vested in the Crown in the right of the province.


Jacques Bureau: Absolutely.


Henry Lumley Drayton: And I do not
think my hon. friend would suggest that this Parliament would have the right to tax such property.
Mr. (BUREAU:	But you could tax the
commission itself. We had the same fiction about the Intercolonial Railway Commission some years ago. On the principle that the King can do no wrong we had to proceed by petition of right. But it became an abuse when a man who had a cow killed on the track or lost a bag of flour in transit had to come to the Governor in Council to get a petition. We got over that by substituting the commission for the Crown.


William Stevens Fielding: The excess profits of the Canadian National Railway Company will come under the operation df this Bill?
Sir UElNRY DRAYTON:	I think they
ought to.


William Stevens Fielding: The stock of that company is vested in the 'Crown, and according to my hon. friend's contention it cannot be reached because it is so vested. But perhaps we had better wait until the company earn some profits.


Henry Lumley Drayton: II think my hon. friend is speaking ironically; but, if taken seriously, it would not be a very profitable matter for the stockholder to tax the stockholder, which would be in effect the result of bringing the company under this law.


Jacques Bureau: Perhaps if we taxed the deficits we would get more revenue.
Mr. LAPOINT'E:	I quite realize that
electricity as such is not taxed, and of course if it were taxed in one province and not in another the action would be indefensible. But my hon. friend says that the Hydro Electric Commission is not operated for the purpose of making profits. Of course, that means that the revenue is used to develop the property and, as a result, give cheaper power to the consumers. In that, it seems to me, there is a discrimination, because the stockholders of a private company cannot do the same under the Business Profits War Tax. Under subsection 3 of section 6 it is provided:
No deductions from the gross profits for depreciation or for any expenditure of a capital nature for renewals, or for the development of a business, or otherwise in respect of the business, shall be allowed, except such amount as appears to the minister to be reasonable and to be properly attributable to the accounting period, and the minister when determining the profits derived from mining shall make an allowance for the exhaustion of the mines.
Another section provides that a company shall not sell its products or goods at a price below what the minister may consider to be a fair price. In this case there is a discrimination, because the Hydro Electric Power Commission not only has the right to do that, but its purpose is to employ its profits to lower the selling price of its electricity. Why should consumers in other parts of the country be deprived of the same privilege of having their electricity cheaper as a result of the good management of the company?


Henry Lumley Drayton: I wguld like to ask the hon. gentleman a question.


Ernest Lapointe: I am asking questions.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Can he tell me how it is feasible for this House to force the Hydro Electric Commission to make excessive profits, even if we wanted the commission to do soi?


Ernest Lapointe: I do not think we can


Henry Lumley Drayton: Then the whole of this discussion is beside the mark.


Mr. VIEN:: In what way would it be more subversive of the existing principle to tax the Hydro Electric Commission than to submit the National railways to municipal taxation? We have admitted the principle in regard to the National railways. It seems to me that the same principle could be applied to the Hydro Electric Commission by submitting it to the operation of this Act.


Samuel William Jacobs: Hear, hear.


Thomas Vien: The same principle applies.


Henry Lumley Drayton: What is the object of this Act but to tax excess profits? Is it to put a premium on excess profits and to raise the cost of carrying on business and the cost of living? Or is it to reduce those costs? The Act has a twofold purpose: First, to try and get something back out of excess profits; second, to coax the people, if you will, so to run their business that they will not make excess profits, and therefore will not be subject to the tax.


Thomas Vien: But the minister sees where we are driving to. We are trying to prevent the consumers in other provinces being called upon to pay an excess amount, because they will be charged so much more for current if the various corporations distributing electricity are called upon to pay the taxation that the minister proposes to impose. In other words, we are trying to put the consumers in the other provinces on about the same basis as that enjoyed by those in Ontario by reason of the exemption of the Hydro Electric Commission from this taxation.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Does my hon. friend consider that a rate of 10 per cent is a fair profit for a public utility?


Thomas Vien: Undoubtedly.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Very good. Then there is no tax. And if any of these companies realize more than 10 per cent on their inveAment, I would like to ask my hon. friend whether they should not be taxed?


Thomas Vien: If you tax them, what will the result be?


Henry Lumley Drayton: If my hon.
friend will bear with me a minute. He has very kindly answered my question and admitted that 10 per cent is a good return

for a public utility. I ask him one further question, which of necessity follows the first: Is it unfair to have an excess profits tax on profits from public utilities which are realizing moire than a 10 per cent dividend?


Jacques Bureau: As a question of principle, I say yes, it is unfair.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am afraid
that I have to take issue with my hon. friend.


Jacques Bureau: The basic principle is
that the burden of the taxation ought to bear evenly on all citizens of the country, and in the case of two business enterprises having similar amounts of capital invested, one should not be called upon to pay while the other is not. The idea of the HydroElectric is that the profits should be reinvested for the benefit of the consumer. In provinces where there is not such a system as the Hydro-Electric, the consumer of a similar product has to pay what the Hydro-Electric would pay if it were a privately-owned company.


Mr. BURNHAM:: Does the hon. gentleman not say that the privately-owned company sells electricity at a lower rate than the publicly-owned company.


Jacques Bureau: I took that from Saturday Night. I repeat that these publicly-owned systems should not be exempt from taxation; the burden of taxation should be apportioned evenly among all the taxpayers.


Mr.   OOWAN@: Why does not this private company reduce its rates and thus escape the excess profits tax?


Jacques Bureau: Because the company has not the country behind it; it has to assume all the risk, and it has to provide for the future. It is the same thing with your national railways. I was going to suggest that we tax deficits on these publicly-owned utilities; we would make more money that way than by taxing profits. The people who are imbued with the idea of public ownership do not realize that there can be profits; they come with a deficit at the end of each year.


Ernest Lapointe: I do not wish to be
understood as saying anything against public ownership. What I claim is that when a province or municipality chooses to enter the business of trading or manufacturing it should be placed in exactly the same position as other traders or manufacturers.


Mr. RICHARDSON:: I would direct the attention of my hon. friend (Mr. Bureau) to the experience in Winnipeg, where we established a publicly-owned electric power system.	-


Jacques Bureau: What about your telephone system?


Robert Lorne Richardson: They cut the cost of electric power to the consumers in Winnipeg and vicinity about one-third, and are paying a handsome profit in addition. Moreover, they compel competing companies to reduce their rates.


Jacques Bureau: Let them pay taxes to the federal treasury, then.


Robert Lorne Richardson: The idea is not to pay taxes; they try to give the consumers service at cost.


Jacques Bureau: Us for ourselves.


Robert Lorne Richardson: No, they pay interest on the investment.


Ernest Lapointe: Sinn Fein.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I desire to make a slight amendment to clause 2. I move that the resolution be amended by striking out the word "and" in the fourth line thereof and replacing the same by a comma, and by adding after "1918" the words "and 1919."	.


William Stevens Fielding: Is that an additional
tax you are imposing?


Henry Lumley Drayton: It is to oover an accounting period with respect to profits on munitions.


William Stevens Fielding: Are you sure you do not need a new resolution?


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not think it is an additional tax at all. No munitions operations were carried on in 1919, but there* has been such delay in accounting in one or two instances that we want to make it clear that munitions profits for 1918, although accounted for in 1919, are taxable.


Samuel William Jacobs: In many cases these munitions companies have already accounted and gone out of business. Does the minister propose to rake these over again?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Oh no, nothing of that kind is thought of. The Act of 1917 was designed to make manufacturers in the small class subject to the ordinary smaller rate of taxation, but manufacturers in that small class who took up munition work and made taxable profits out of it would be chargeable in the higher scale. Settlements have been made in almost all cases, but
they are not entirely complete, and the issue is now being raised that the legislation of 1917 did not have the effect of applying to these unaccounted for operations. We think it had; the Department of Justice advises us that it had, and practically the whole matter has been closed on that basis'. This will ensure that all will be treated alike; that those who have not yet completed their accounting will be treated exactly the same as others weTe treated.


Samuel William Jacobs: Those who have already
paid have been obliged to pay on this basis?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Absolutely.


Samuel William Jacobs: This resolution is simply to -make clear the law of last year?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Yes.


Mr. PEDLOW:: Do the words "such
profits" in the fifth line refer to gross profits or to net profits?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Net profits.


Isaac Ellis Pedlow: It is not so stated.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I shall be glad to see that that is made right in the Bill.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Resolution reported and concurred in.
Sir HENRY DRAYTON (Minister of Finance) thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 157, to amend the Business Profits War Tax Act, 1916.
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
The House again in Committee of Ways and Means.-Sir Henry Drayton (Minister of Finance)-Mr. Boivin in the Chair.
Resolved, That it is expedient to amend The Income War Tax Act, 1917, and the amendments thereto, and to provide:
1.	That the taxes and surtaxes, including the tax upon corporations and Joint stock companies, leviable .and payable under the provisions of section four of the said Act as enacted by chapter fifty-five of the Statutes of 1919 shall each be increased by five per centum on incomes of five thousand dollars and upwards, such increases to apply to all taxes and surtaxes leviable for any income received during the calendar year nineteen hundred and nineteen, or the income of any accounting period ending in nineteen hundred and nineteen, as the case may be, and for each calendar year or accounting period thereafter;
2.	That each person liable to taxation under the said Act and the amendments thereto for the calendar year nineteen hundred and twenty or any accounting period ending in the year nineteen hundred and twenty and for each
[Stage Direction]
calendar year or accounting period thereafter shall deliver to the Minister of Finance, with each annual return of his income prescribed by section seven of the said Act as amended, an amount equal to at least one-fourth of the amount of the tax and surtax, if any, payable by such person according to such return, and shall pay the balance, if any, of such tax and surtax in not more than three bimonthly instalments thereafter, together with interest at the rate of six per centum per annum from the date prescribed for making such return up to the time of the payment of such instalment;
3.	That any person making a return of income less than the correct amount shall pay the additional amount of tax and surtax due and in addition interest at the rate of ten per centum upon such amount until the same is paid.
If such deficiency exceeds ten per centum but is under twenty per centum, such person shall also pay an amount equal to one-half of the amount of such deficiency in addition, and if such deficiency amounts to twenty per centum or more such person shall pay an amount equi. to the amount of such deficiency in addition.
['I have no objection to the third reading at the next sitting of the House, but at present the attendance is not very large, and it seems to me it would be better now not to proceed further.\nMotion stands.']
Mr. DENIS:: What is to- be done in regard to those who did not make reports in previous years? There is in the law provision that those who did not make reports in previous years are liable to very severe penalties. I do not know of any such penalties having been imposed, although there is no doubt that thousands of persons in Canada have not made reports according to law. (Recently, if I understand the matter aright, those who should have made .their reports by the end of April and who did not do so were granted a delay until the end of May, and if they did not make their reports before the end of May, they are to be fined 25 per cent of the tax. Many people who should have made reports under- the old law, did not do so, and I would suggest that the Government should take some steps to straighten out this condition of affair. 1 do not approve of imposing the penalties provided in the law on those who, for some reason or another, did not make their reports, because this is -a law which the average man finds it hard to understand, aqd therefore, 1 would feel like being lenient towards such people. But this is: a question which should be settled, because there are actually suspended over the heads of these people enormous penalties, although, as a matter of fact, these penalties have not been imposed. The Government should announce their policy as to whether these penalties are to be imposed or not, and as to what Is to be done regarding persons who, according to law, should have made reports in past years and who did not do so.


Henry Lumley Drayton: No attempt is being made to make these penalties retroactive. They are not.


Jean-Joseph Denis: That is not the point I raised at all. I know the penalties are not retroactive. Under the old law a person who should have made a report for 1917, or 1918, or 1919, and who did not make a report, was liable to a certain penalty. There is no question that when the Government begin to delve into this matter, they will find out that thousands of people who should have made reports for those years did not do so. -Consequently, according to the law in force at that time, those people would toe liable to very severe penalties, and I think they should not be subjected to those penalties, because this is a new law very difficult of application; hut in the meantime, these people should be made to pay what they owe to the Government.


Henry Lumley Drayton: We are endeavouring to collect taxes. I am afraid I shall have to take issue with my hon. friend. We must so frame the law that it is going to pay people to pay taxes rather than run the risk of what will happen if they attempt to evade taxation. The hon. gentleman asks what has been done in connection with these penalties. If I remember rightly, we commenced taking proceedings last August. There art two sets of proceedings: There are proceedings in the police court which are taken when a man does not make a report which he ought to make, and there are proceedings by way of action to force a taxpayer to pay moneys which his return shows, ought to have been paid to the Government, which payments he has not made. On the one hand it is obviously absolutely improper that the #Act should be allowed to toe looked upon "merely as a polite invitation to make a governmental contribution, and on the other hand it is equally improper that the Act should be unduly harshly and improperly forced). What I mean by that is this. I hope it is not going to toe necessary to sue and to prosecute every defaulter; it ought not to be; tout it is necessary from time to time to issue these writs and these proceedings, and largely as a result of issuing writs and police court proceedings, the collection of income taxes last year increased by 100 per cent. 1 do not think that any undue hardship has been shown in what has been done. 120 writs have been issued throughout the whole country for the purpose of educating the people as much as possible in regard to the matter and making

them realize that these taxes must he paid. Of these 120 actions, 40 are still in progress and may or may not go to trial, and 80 have been settled by the taxpayer paying everything he ought to pay in addition to all penalties and costs to date. Over and above that, police court proceedings to the number of 96 have been taken throughout the -whole country with the same object in view, and out of them we have obtained 55 convictions, we have two acquittals, six eases standing on adjournments and 33 cases awaiting trial in the criminal courts.


Mr. PROURX:: Have fines imposed by police courts been remitted to defaulters?


Henry Lumley Drayton: The department has remitted absolutely none, and, of course, that is not a matter for the department to do; that is entirely a matter of clemency on the part of the executive, and any action -which might be taken would be taken through the department of the Solicitor General. My impression, although I may be wrong, is that none has been remitted. Certainly, if any fines have been remitted, the number would be very small, and such action would foe taken only in exceptional circumstances. The fines collected in connection with these criminal prosecutions amount to $33,000. My hon. friend (Mr. Denis) asks what the policy of the Government is. The policy is to collect taxes with the greatest possible celerity. The policy further is absolutely to enforce the provisions of the statute. The hon. gentlemen asks whether the penalties are imposed for delays. They are. Under the Act of last year, if the return is late the penalty is automatically added to -the Bill. If anything has been overlooked, I can assure the hon. gentleman it is an oversight.	' I


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: I think my hon. friend has somewhat mistaken the purport of the remarks of the hon. member for Joliette. I do- not 'think my hon. friend from Joliette had in mind directing attention particularly to penalties or the enforcement o;f penalties. What he was anxious to ascertain was whether the Government has devised machinery that is * complete enough to make perfectly sure that every person in this country who ought to pay an income tax does pay that tax, not for this year only tout for the past one or tiwo years, because i't is pretty generally known that a good many people did not make returns in previous years. We are anxious to know what machinery
the Government has at the present time for securing payments that should have been made in previous years, and whether a special effort is 'being made in 'that direction.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Yes, we are making efforts in that direction. Undoubtedly the returns for the 1917 assessment do not represent the full amount payable, and for 'that accounting period we have since collected the sum of $6,000,000, and we are following up every accounting period in the same way. Whenever a new citizen who ought to foe a taxpayer is found, the tax is not limited to this present year, hut Is taken back 'to the very first .accounting period. In every single list that I can think of, or that can be thought of-assessment rolls of municipalities, membership of clubs, automobile owners, stockholders in institutions, bondholders of companies, people who receive dividends from any source-all these are being made use of in order to find out who- ought to pay the tax, and if we can make i't more stringent we shall 'be happy to do so.


Samuel William Jacobs: To give an example of the efficiency of the department, last year in the Budget debate I committed the egregious folly of saying the income tax was a joke. Well, within a very few hours I got my fax bill. This year hon. gentlemen notice that I do not complain of the income tax being a joke.


Mr. SHEARD:: Is .any provision made to cover cases of dispute between a taxpayer making his return and the department? For instance, a man might claim certain exemptions on account of taxes already paid, repairs to property deducted out of rents, and 'so on. It is provided here that a cheque for 25 per cent of the amount shall accompany the return. In case of a diispute is there any provision permitting that return to be subject 'to adjustment without penalty?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Cases of disputed assessment are taken up at headquarters, and the thing is checked over there again. If the matter cannot he adjusted in the light of the further information which head office is usually able to give the taxpayer then has the right of recourse'to a court of revision, which he may have established at any time be likes. So far as the cheque is concerned, the idea a't any rate is that iwhdle the 'taxpayer must make his returns promptly, an equal responsibility rests upon the department of immediately investigating the correctness of his state-

mentis and of returning any surplus which he may have paid.


Charles Sheard: Suppose 'the mistake is the other way and .the taxpayer has not paid enough?


Henry Lumley Drayton: This provision refers, not to ia mistake in calculation the taxpayer may make in getting at the tax, but to mistakes in showing his income, which he knows.


Mr. McKENZIE:: I do not quite appreciate why such penalties are attached to the collection of this debt, because that is what this tax is. I think iwe might expect a little more leniency from the Crown and the Government than from the ordinary man who has a debt to- collect. This tax is only a debt. It is not a fine. It is not imposed because olf any infringement of the laiw. It is a mere debt, just as the taxes a man pays to a municipality or a town are a debt. If he does not pay those debts, he is subject to the laiw for the collection of debt. If he does not pay his taxes the minute they are due, he is not subject to imprisonment, and why should he be penalized because he happens to make default in the payment of this tax? I agree that this tax should be collected as expeditiously as possible, but ,why not provide simple machinery by which a man might 'perhaps give a short term note for the whole amount? Then if he did not pay the amount when due, he would be subject to be sued; but why a man should be subject to 6 and 10 per cent interest being added, and a fine of some thousand dollars, and imprisonment if he idoes not pay .the fine, I do not quite understand. The minister boasts about the great number of .prosecutions they have had as .if it were a glorious thing. They have (Collected a great many fines, he says. They have been holding a bludgeon perhaps over the heads of some poor people of this country because they could not pay trie tax. I repeat, this is a mere debt due from the individual to the Crown which should be collected as expeditiously and as cheaply and as humanly as possible. I do not think it is anything for the minister to boast about that, because ne has Parliament behind him, he is imposing heavy fines upon people and bringing a lot of them into court. I do not think it is anything to boast about that he has collected in fines the sum of $32,000 from the people of this country. Income taxation is a new thing. The people are not accustomed to it, and I think the .greatest possible leniency

should be exercised in collecting the tax. The simplest kind of machinery should be provided, and the amplest notice should he given to the people, because lots of them do not understand this thing at all. I submit to the minister that instead of boasting about the machinery he has provided, he should adopt the simplest possible and the least expensive methods of collecting the tax.


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:: I may say that, not perhaps for the first time, I find myself diametrically opposed to the spirited remarks of my hon. friend (Mr. McKenzie). I do not think this is simply a debt. It is a duty to the state; it is a civilian and financial duty to the state comparable to the military duty of the soldier, not in the matter of risk, hut in the matter of duty. If a soldier in the ranks defaults, if he deserts, he is shot. What the people of Canada want at the present moment is to be inspired by the example of the soldier in the trenches. I think every civilian in Canada should bring to the work of reconstruction in Canada for a period of six years anyhow, as against the four or five years of the war, the same spirit the boys showed, and had to show, in the trenches. I do not think I need say another word in strong support and commendation of the attitude of the minister in this regard. There is no commoner criticism by the man in the street of this Government than that there has been laxity in the collection of the income tax and in the enforcement of the Act, and my hon. friend (Sir Henry Drayton), I am sure, will meet that criticism best by carrying out his duties in the spirit of the remarks he made a short time ago.


Thomas Vien: Although I appreciate fully the remarks made by the hon. member for Red Deer that the duty of a taxpayer is very similar to the duty of a soldier who is called upon to serve, I must say that his remarks were not to the point raised by my hon. friend (Mr. Denis) and my hon. friend (Mr. McKenzie). These gentlemen do not pretend that it is not the duty of the taxpayer to pay the tax, but they do say that the taxpayer, like the soldier, should be instructed in regard to the nature of the duty which is expected of him. The soldier in the ranks is not called upn to fill any perilous post until he has been thoroughly trained in the work which his duty involves. The taxpayer of Canada is now charged with the responsibility of complying with entirely new regu-

lations, and while he has no desire to evade that responsibility and escape paying his tax he certainly does want to know just what he has to do. I would submit to the minister, not critically but as a constructive suggestion, that pamphlets should be very widely circulated among the public, giving all the details in regard to the application of the law; and that on the forms themselves which the taxpayers are called upon to fill up complete information should be given so that no one may be taken by surprise. Personally, I did not know that 25 per cent had to be paid as a penalty if the statement was not made within a certain period. I realize quite well that ignorance of the law is no excuse; but when a new law such as this is introduced it seems to me that some consideration should be given to the public, who are not posted on matters that are passed in Parliament. I therefore suggest to the minister that these pamphlets be distributed in all post offices and other stations where forms are given for the taxpayer to make his return. I do not see why any one should be penalized to any serious extent because of some slight omission or some trivial error in regard to the making of returns, arid before any drastic steps are taken I certainly think that the taxpayer, just like the soldier, should be fully instructed in his duty.
Sir HEivRY DRAYTON:	I entirely appreciate the suggestion of the hon. member, and I think that probably he more correctly understands the attitude of the Government than does the hon. member for Cape Breton (Mr, McKenzie). The Government is not taking any delight in prosecutions, and there is absolutely no such idea in any one's head. Prosecuting is a nasty thing to have to do, but because it is nasty and undesirable is nevertheless no reason why it should not be done when the country has been defrauded of moneys which are properly payable to it. We welcome all constructive citicism, and I should like my hon. friend to supplement his suggestions. Now, what we have done this year is to advertise, in every single daily newspaper published in this country, the fact that these returns must be made. Furthermore, you will find the advertisements in every weekly paper in 'Canada. These advertisements have run for a period of six weeks, and they are to be found in almost every newspaper at least six times. In addition to that, tens of thousands of pamphlets have been distributed, and you will see them in shop windows, on billboards and in street cars. We have done everything we could possibly think of
to advertise the tax and the penalty that will be imposed if the return is not made.


Mr. DENTS:: The minister is inviting
constructive criticism and I know that he is considering this subect in a broad and conciliatory spirit, and in that spirit I wish to submit to him a case that came to my notice some time ago. A rich farmer came to me and said that he had his report all ready but there was a question in regard to which he found himself in a quandary to make an answer. He was asked whether he had made his report for the year 1919.


Henry Lumley Drayton: 1918.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Yes, 1918. This question
was asked in the report and he pointed out that if he had said "Yes" he would not be telling the truth, whereas if he gave an answer in the negative he would be placing himself in the hands of the Government officials who would immediately take civil proceedings against him. On the other hand, if he made no report now he might obviate the necessity for making the answer and would so avoid the consequences of his negligence. He wanted to know what he should do; it was a question whether or not he should make his report. The fact that he had made no report in 1918 was due either to his ignorance of the law or to a misapprehension as to its exact provisions, call it what you will. It is a fact, however, that when a new law such as this is enacted numerous mistakes of every description occur. This man said that his failure to make the report was not due to any desire to. evade his responsibility, hut he was now in a dilemma and he wanted to know what I, as a lawyer, would suggest in the circumstances. I replied that I would take no responsibility in the matter, but I pointed out that if he made no report now he might stand a chance of escaping; while, on the other hand, if he reported, he would have to tell the truth and put up with the consequences. I left him to take his choice. Perhaps some one will suggest that I was not doing my duty as a lawyer in putting the situation before that man as I did. Well, I have my own view so far as that is concerned; but now I shall do my duty as a member of this House and as representing that man among others and ask that in such a case some opportunity be given to a taxpayer to make a report without any apprehension in the matter. Will you not allow him to make his report for the past year when he does that? At all events surely you are not going to ruin

him with the very heavy penalties which are being imposed by this law? Give him a chance to make his report and if you do sc then I will call him back to my office and say, "Now is the time to make your report. Make your report and tell your friends in your parish, and in the next parish and everywhere, that they have to make reports-that the Government has afforded them the opportunity of making reports without being strangled." They will make their reports accordingly and in future the law will run smoothly. If ia man who has once made a report should not continue to report he will be in bad faith, there is no question about it. But when it comes to making the first report, and when we come across a man in such a case as I have mentioned, I think the Government should afford him an opportunity to make his reports. In the meantime I say to the minister this is one of the reasons which prevents the collection of other taxes, because these people are afraid to make their first report for fear they will be called on to pay penalties in respect to it. I want it well understood: they do not refuse to pay for the past year, but they are afraid of the very heavy penalties to which they will be exposed the very moment they make their first report.


Mr. CROTHERS:: I was very glad to hear the Minister of Finance state that he would welcome any suggestions that might improve the methods of collecting the income tax. I think the great majority of the people regard an income tax of .any sort as *an unwelcome visitor; and it is doubly unwelcome if the provisions are so complicated that the ordinary man does not understand how the sum that is required to be paid has to be made up. We have three statutes, or portions of statutes, in operation in regard to the income tax, .and I suppose we will have another this session, which will make four. We have now in operation the normal, the super tax and the surtax. The last, has always seemed to me most absurd; it is not a tax on something that is coming in, but it is a tax on something we .are paying out. That is, the normal and supertax are added together and there is a tax put upon the aggregate of the two sums, which is called the surtax. I do not know whether there is any such tax as that in England. There is not in the United States. They have two kinds there. What we call the supertax they call the surtax; there they have only the two kinds, the normal tax and the surtax.

Now the system is very complicated as it stands together; the man of ordinary ability cannot make it out at all. I want to confess that with the figures from the Finance Department before me, and taking up the three statutes-1917,	1918 and 1919-1
laboured a whole half day and I could not for the life of me make out from those three statutes the authority for the figures sent me-I have no doubt they are correct-from the Finance Department. Now the ordinary man cannot make them out at all. I have spoken to a great many on the subject and they have said, "The whole thing is so complicated I cannot understand it. 1 accepted the figures of the department and said no more about it." That is all very well. The Finance Department, I take it, have sent out correct figures, but I, for one, want to take the statutes and see how those figures are arrived at. 'I think every man would like to do that, hut as the statutes stand to-day he cannot do it. There are so many amendments and subamendments, so many clauses and subclauses, that you cannot figure out the authority for the sum they say you owe. What is the proposition now? It is that a man who is liable to pay 'an income tax shall not wait until he is notified by the Finance Department of the amount of this tax, and it is thought that is going to simplify matters. I venture to say that instead of simplifying matters, the work of the Finance Department is going to be doubled. I don't believe that one man in ten will be able to make out correctly the amount he has to pay. I confess I am not able to do it with the three existing taxes, and with a fourth I shall despair entirely.
M,r. PR'OULX: Your income is too large.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: comes short one half-penny in his tax returns, he shall be led out as a lamb to the slaughter and shot before the rays of the sun pierces the western, horizon-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Well there will be just a little glow in the eastern sky which will gradually extend towards the western horizon. We are told that Paul was executed at a very early hour, and I am quite sure that my good friend from the West is familiar with the grey dawn on the hill when the good old Apostle was done to death. That is the time when, in this twentieth century, my hon. friend wants to have these poor delinquents aroused from their beds at midnight-as they were at Winnipeg-and taken out and shot. I hope, indeed, that the hon. gentleman and the minister will change their minds, and that instead of introducing martial law in connection with the collection of these taxes they will be satisfied to fall back on the simple old method which has heretofore served our purpose very well. I think they will find it much more convenient in the long run, especially as they will not be able to collect the heavy taxes which the hon. member from North Ontario (Mr. Halbert) told us the other day were collected on coffins, for, according to tradition, people who are taken out and shot at down are buried where they fall. I think my good friend from Red Deer has come to a conclusion a little too speedily this time in advocating this new method of tax collection, and I hope he will reconsider his position.


Michael Clark: I am not lawyer enough, Mr. Chairman, to be able to give an opinion as to whether my hon. friend's law has improved, but I am certain that his humour is getting heavier, and I do not know that his fairness is increasing. I cannot conceive of any one who listened with any care to what I said forming an opinion that I for one moment suggested that a similar penalty should be applied to a man for not doing his civil duty as was applied to a soldier in the trenches for desertion. I did not say a single word that would lend itself to such an interpretation, and it is almost a shame that a man should have to get up to disavow any intention to convey such a meaning. Neither the war, nor collecting the expenses of the war, Mr. Chairman, is, after all, a joke. I would commend that to my hon. friend who comes from Cape Breton (Mr. McKenzie). We admire his humour on occasions, but a $2,000,000,000 debt is no joke. I would not like to charge my hon. friend with trying to make

political capital along the line of misrepresentation, but he went very near the border line. I said nothing about shooting any one for not paying his taxes. I asserted a fact about military punishment, and in regard to the discharge of the civil dut.ies of the minister in the collection of the taxes I used the word "spirit." I commended the spirit of fairness in which he had promised the House and the country that he was going to approach the collection of the income tax. I want to say to my hon. friend (Mr. McKenzie) (that if he has any sympathy with rich men in evading the duty of paying their taxes, after the sacrifices that have been piade and the lives that have been lost in the trenches, then I have precious little pf that sympathy. My sympathy is with the poor who are taxed when they should not be; it is not with the rich who have large incomes and who try to avoid the payment of their taxes. I do not know that d should have risen for the purpose of replying to my hon. friend, becanse there ,was nothing to reply to; I rose for the purpose of stating my position so Clearly that there could not possibly be any misapprehension of it.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I still say that a tax is a debt. True, it is a debt to the Crown, and it is thus differentiated from a debt to an ordinary individual. My hon. friend .(Mr. M. Clark) says that this tax is not a debt; that it is in the same category as a military duty. Well, I have a perfect [DOT]right to suppose that it was running in my hon. friend's mind that the same line of action ought to be followed in case of default in connection with these taxes as is followed in case of default in military matters. 'The man who fails to do his duty when under military discipline must be shot; the man who fails to do his duty in furnishing the money for war purposes must also 'be shot. That is my hon. friend's line of reasoning, as I understood it. I do not want 'him, however, to take the matter too seriously, because I myself was not too serious. I am sure that he would be the last mam to take part in iany such gruesome procedure as he seems to suggest.
, Mr. PEDLOW: The minister has asked for suggestions. Now, my suggestion is that all the words of the clause after the word "return" in the seventh line be struck out and something of this nature be substituted therefor:
Not later than April first in each year and shall pay the balance at the rate of six per

cent per annum in quarterly payments on July first, October first and December first.
My reason for making this suggestion is that the clause should be more specific as ,to dates of payment. Under the present system, statements are sent out and returns sent in at varying periods; a man may receive his statement months ahead of his next door neighbour, and when they begin to compare notes there is dissatisfaction all round. The change which I Suggest would, 1 submit, be of advantage to the Taxation Department as well as to the taxpayer, because it would be an inducement to the department to send out their tax bills on or- before a certain date. If it is intended that the department shall not send out statements before the first payment is made, then .the taxpayer may send in his return with his first instalment, or the entire amount if he chooses, on the first specific date named; or, if be pays only the first instalment, 'may pay the balance as set forth in the suggested amendment. It would be a great advantage to large corporations as well as to individuals pf considerable income if the payments were spread over the entire year. I think that the adoption of this suggestion would be a decided improvement.	'


Henry Lumley Drayton: The hon. member for Jolie'tte (Mr. Denis) cites a case of hardship which he has run across in his .practice as a lawyer. He does not know .whether he did the right thing as a lawyer, but I think he is quite of the opinion that he did the wrong thing as a legislator, and he now wants to get the right thing done. I hasten to set his imind entirely at rest .in connection with arrears of 1917 and ,1918. In those years very many people did not know much about the Act; it was entirely new, and there was much doubt .about it. Consequently, we are not seeking to penalize any who have not made their .returns, so long as they are honest now and tell us the truth. But the time has .come when they ought to tell the truth, .and if they db not tell the truth they will ,be hurt sooner or later. What I mean is this: There are still people who have not paid their taxes for the years 1917 and ,1918. Perhaps not to-day or to-morrow or the day afteT, but sooner or later, they will ,be caught. If any man chooses to come forward, make his return for 1919 and tell .the truth also with regard to 1917 and 1918, he will not be punished in respect of the arrears; he still has the opportunity to make the returns tor 1917 and 1918 so that
my hon. friend can without fear advise his client to do the honest and proper thing.
. I agree with much that the ex-Minister of Labour (Mr. Crotbers) said. All tax laws are more or less technical and difficult to understand, and of all tax laws the graduated income tax is probably the most complicated, particularly when it is a new tax. There is no doubt that a certain amount of difficulty is experienced in arriving at exactly what amount of income tax ought to be paid. Parliament went some way last year in setting out in the Act of 1919 a pretty clear schedule, showing plainly how the percentages of payments increased, as I recollect the matter, in $2,000 spreads. I do not think a lawyer would find very much difficulty in figuring out the taxes under the Act of 1919. Perhaps I should not say that, because a good business man, certainly a good accountant, can handle a taxing statute much more easily than a lawyer can. There is no doubt a difficulty exists in connection with the matter, and we propose to get away from it in this way. We intend to have, either printed on the returns themselves that are sent out for next year, or attached to the returns, a list showing incomes of different amounts with the exact amounts of the taxes that ought to be paid on those incomes. Therefore, there will be no difficulty whatever for the taxpayer who wants to pay and who knows his income-and if he does not know his income, we cannot assist him in that regard-on looking at that [DOT]list, to see just exactly what sum he ought to pay. It is true we shall not print on the returns copies of these Acts with their more or less complicated provisions, nor shall we go through the matter chapter and verse, showing how the computation is made up; *but we shall see to it that the computation is right and that the list can be safely and easily followed.
I fully appreciate the suggestion made by the hon. member for Renfrew South (Mr. Pedlow). He is perfectly correct. Bills have been delayed and bills have gone out at different times. The reason for that is this.: Under the lormer statute the department had absolutely no right to recall an assessment that had been made; an assessment once made stood.. That meant that every man who was honest and zealous in his duties made no assessment until he had absolutely satisfied himself that he had checked up every single item that ought to be checked up in connection with a return that was made, and therefore the bill would go out only when that information was ob-

iained. In connection with some incomes, that information could be easily and readily 'got at, and the bill went out promptly. In *other eases, the bill went out perhaps only after a lapse of months, and in cases of incomes *where investigations had to be made into excess profits earned by certain companies, such inquiries might last a year, and the bills would go out at different times with the result the hon. gentleman has pointed out. We are proposing to change that entirely; we intend to frame the law so that the duty is placed directly upon the ratepayer, Who knows his income and who is given this list which will tell him exactly how much taxes he ought to pay on that income, of making, in the first instance, his assessment. The question of time is some-[DOT] thing which we give only for the convenience of the ratepayer. It would be very convenient if every one could afford to pay his taxes in full at once; but unfortunately some people cannot do that, and time is more or less wanted. Time is given by different municipalities, either in withdrawing deductions or in having ascending percentages of interest if payments are delayed, so that the municipality loses nothing by giving time. The ratepayer has a period of weeks within which to make a return. We do not want him to wait until the very last day on which the return ought to come in; it is a great deal better for the Administration that returns should come in just as quickly and regularly as possible. The idea is, after a ratepayer has made his return, to give him time in the manner indicated. This is a matter for each ratepayer, and I do not think any difficulty should arise, because this provision will apply automatically. If a man. makes a return and sends in a cheque on the first April for only a quarter of the amount of the tax, he will have to pay another quarter on the first June, another quarter on the first August and another quarter on the first October. If his return is delayed and does not come in until the first June, his two-months' periods would run on just two months later. He would, of course, have the privilege of paying interest at the specified rate for that much longer.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: What is the objection to the simple process that I suggested of 2 per cent on the first thousand, 3 per cent on the second thousand, 4 per cent on the third thousand? There must be some reason or the minister would not have the tax as it stands. If there is any explanation I should like to have it.
[Sir Henry Drayton, i


Henry Lumley Drayton: We have the tax now very nearly in the manner suggested by my hon. friend. Of course, we have to have, in connection with all graduated incomes, different scales of rates.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: It might be all one
class.	.


Henry Lumley Drayton: It is not in
one class, because the classes here are divisions which can be arrived at only by having regard to the amount of the tax. The richer man must relatively pay much more than the small man with the small income. The tax as it now stands commences with the lowest rate of 4 per cent of normal tax on the small income; that is, 4 per cent on all incomes exceeding $1,000 in the case of unmarried persons and $2,000 in the case of married persons, and it runs from there to $6,000. After you reach an inome of $6,000, the tax on everything over that is 8 per cent, no matter how large the income is. That is the normal tax. Then there is a list of tables furnished showing how the surtax is to be arrived at. The first surtax starts with a tax of one per cent on the amount by which an income exceeds $5,000 and does not exceed $6,000; then the tax is 2 per cent on the amount by which an income exceeds $6,000 iand does not exceed $8,000, and so the list goes on. I do not think the public should have much difficulty in finding out exactly what the tax is if the calculations are made by the department and the exact amount of the tax for different incomes shown on the return.


Mr. EULER:: I understood the minister
to state that in cases where men have failed, for any reason whatsoever, to make returns for 1917 or 1918, as the case may be, if they now confess their misdeeds or their lack of action, no penalty will be imposed. I have no fault to find with that at all; but supposing it happens now that a man has not made a return for 1917, or 1918, or 1919, and he now makes his return, is he going to be charged a penalty for not making a return for 1919?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Yes.


William Daum Euler: But not for 1917 or 1918?


Henry Lumley Drayton: No,


William Daum Euler: It does not seem to me to be altogether just to do that. Supposing a man made his return and paid his taxes for 1917, made his return for 1918, but did not make his return for 1919, let us say,

by the end of May. I assume from an item I saw in the newspaper- and I think it is according to the law-that if he did not make his return for 1919 by midnight of May 31 last, he is liable to pay an additional 25 per cent of the tax. There you have the case of a man who after all has paid his taxes for 1917 and 1918, though he has been a little remiss in 1919, and he gets worse treatment than the man who has neglected his duty during all those years. It does not seem to me to .be fair.


Henry Lumley Drayton: The hon. gentleman does not quite appreciate the position. The position is exactly the same for both so far as 1919 is concerned. We have expended so much money in advertising and have made the thing so public that at least so far as 1919 is concerned there is no excuse that I can think of which would justify default. As to the man who has made no return for 1917 or 1918, and who has made no return for 1919, while no penalty is to be exacted for 1917 or 1918, if he comes forward to-day with a return for 1919 giving the information as to 1917 and 1918, he will have to pay the penalty for 1919. So, as far as that year is concerned, the two taxpayers are in exactly the same position. Of course the excuse of ignorance, novelty, and the like, which might apply to some people certainly cannot apply to the man who made a return for 1917 and 1918 and therefore knew about the law.


Mr. PROULX:: If a man marries at the end of an accounting period, say in the last month of the year, is he considered a married man?


Henry Lumley Drayton: If he marries
any time during the year.


Edmond Proulx: He might reduce his taxes by marrying in the last month of the year.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I want to bring to the notice of the minister a matter about which I spoke to him some time ago in connection with the exemption of certain persons. I understand the law to be that a single man has now an exemption of $1,000. Now there are men in this country who must be regarded as single, but who nevertheless have' to keep house and have a housekeeper, servants, and so forth. I have reference to clergymen of the Catholic church. I do not think it would be the intention of the minister or the Government to regard these men who must keep house and have a very substantial class of servants as single men who have not the responsibility of house-199
keeping. I have had many letters from these men and I submitted this argument to the minister some time ago, and he was good enough to write me that he would give some attention to it. I do trust that the minister will give some consideration to this class of men. Certainly $1,000 seems a very small exemption for men of that class, who have all the responsibilities of clergymen who are married men with families and who keep house. I call this matter to the attention of the minister because I think from the very beginning it was an oversight not to have made an exception in the case of these men.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I have a good-deal of sympathy with the hon. member in this case, but there is some difficulty in further increasing exemptions. We have heavy exemptions now, and while it is perfectly true that the clergy of the country are, as a rule, very much underpaid, it is also true that the houses they live in are, as a rule, subject to no taxes at all. In other ways it would be somewhat difficult in a tax of this kind to make the exemption that is desired. It certainly could not be done upon the ground that some of our clergy were unmarried, or in the case of the clergy of the Roman Catholic church were prevented by their obligations from getting married. It could be done on the ground, I assume, that an unmarried clergyman should have an exemption of $2,000. It would be an exemption, therefore, of clergymen as a class, while other unmarried men would be differently treated. It might be that some consideration might be given to the question in the Bill, not upon that ground but upon the ground whether a man who really keeps house, and a woman who keeps house, whether married or single, or widow or widower, should not as housekeepers receive a certain exemption.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Of course, I see that
there are some difficulties in the way, but it seems to me the people generally would be satisfied that all clergymen should be exempt from this tax. Of course, the tax would be all right in the case of a wealthy man who had other sources of income besides his stipend, but in the case of those who have to depend on their stipend I think it would be quite proper under present conditions to exempt them from this tax without making any distinction as to denomination. What I said before I stand by, that these men I referred to must necessarily by reason of their calling be single, but at the same time they must keep a house with all that pertains to it, and I



think their case should be taken into consideration. I would go further and say that all clergymen of all denominations should be exempt from this tax.


Mr. COWAN:: Nothing doing.


Jean-Joseph Denis: In the Budget Speech the Minister of Finance said:
The returns will be carefully checked by the department, and in cases where it is discovered that overpayment has been made by the ratepayer a refund for the amount must be immediately made to him or applied on any instalment due or becoming due.
1	fail to find any such provisions in the resolution. Is that simply an oversight?


Henry Lumley Drayton: It will be in the Bill.


Jean-Joseph Denis: I understand it should have been in the resolution also.


Henry Lumley Drayton: It should be there.


Isaac Ellis Pedlow: I should again like to refer to the suggestion I made a short time ago, which I do not think the Minister of Finance quite appreciated. Clause 2 seems to me to be rather indefinite, and it was with the object of making it more specific that I made my suggestion. Clause
2	reads in part as follows:
That each person liable to taxation	
shall deliver to the Minister of Finance, with each annual return of his income prescribed by section 7 of the said Act as amended, an amount equal to at least one fourth of the amount of the tax and surtax, if any, payable by such person according to such return and shall pay the balance, if any;
and so on. My suggestion is that specific dates should be mentioned for making the first return and the first payment on the tax. I think that my suggestion to let payments be made quarterly would not cause any hardship to the department, and it certainly would be a great convenience to the taxpayers. I would suggest , that the first payment be made not later than April the first, and subsequent payments quarterly, on the first of July, the first of October, and the first of December of each year. The department would then know when to expect these several payments. In think the suggestion is worthy of consideration, and if it is not adopted, the clause might be amended to include a provision somewhat along that line, making it more specific.


Georges Henri Boivin: Do I understand the hon. member to repeat this as a suggestion? He has sent me a copy in writing.
'Mr. McKenzie.]
Does he wish to be considered as moving this as an amendment?


Isaac Ellis Pedlow: It was not my intention to submit it in the form of an amendment. I understood the Finance Minister to ask for suggestions, and I simply suggest this for the minister's consideration.
Resolution reported and concurred in.
Sir HENRY DRAYTON thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 158 to amend the Income War Tax Act, 1917.
Motion agreed to and Bill read the first time.



[Stage Direction]
On motion of Hon. Newton W. Rowell (President of the Privy Council) Bill No. 53 to amend the Civil Service Act, 1918, and the Civil Service Amendment Act, 1919, was read the second time and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Boivin in the Chair.
On section 2-temporary employment outside of Canada.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Will the minister please explain the effect of this section?


Mr. ROWELL:: The effect of the section is to extend the limit of time within which temporary or emergency appointments outside of Canada can be held without approval of the commission, from thirty to ninety days. Where emergency work arises and it is necessary to employ a person at once to do it, the appointment may !be made by the officer of the department in the locality in which the work is to be done. Under the law as it stands, the appointment must be submitted to the Civil Service Commission for approval by them within thirty days. Hon. members will see that where emergency employment is outside of Canada it is physically impossible to submit an appointment to the commission within thirty days, and this makes it ninety days.


William Stevens Fielding: What is the present section in regard to this matter?


Newton Wesley Rowell: The present section reads:
When employees are required on short notice for emergency work outside the city of Ottawa, the responsible agent or officer of the department requiring such extra assistance may engage the necessary employees, and the said agent or officer in each case shall forthwith report to the commission through the

deputy head of his department the names of the persons so employed. No such employment shall extend beyond thirty days unless approved by the commission.
The effect of the amendment is to extend the term of employment, in emergency work that arises outside of Canada, to ninety days.


William Stevens Fielding: The thirty-day limitation remains so far as employment within Canada is concerned.


Newton Wesley Rowell: Yes.


John Howard Sinclair: How many employees are there outside of Canada?


Newton Wesley Rowell: Two or three hundred altogether. They are principally in the Immigration service and in the High Commissioner's office. There are also Trade Commission offices under the Department of Trade and Commerce.


John Howard Sinclair: Are those temporary employees?


Newton Wesley Rowell: No, they are not temporary employees. This amendment applies to emergencies where it is necessary to engage temporary assistance for work which is required to he immediately done.	*


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: What is the law in respect of employment in Canada?


Newton Wesley Rowell: In the case of any emergency employment of this kind outside the city of Ottawa, an arrangement may be made by an officer of the department in the district for the employment of assistance, but that employment cannot continue for more than thirty days without the approval of the commission. It must be reported at once, and unless the commission approves, such employment ceases at the end of thirty days. So far as employment outside of Canada is concerned, it will be obvious to hon. members that it could not be possible to report to the commission and obtain its approval Within thirty days, and it is to meet that situation that the time is being extended to ninety days.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I do not see what authority our agent in New York, for instance, would have in the employment of men, by reason of any law which we might pass. We cannot pass any law directing what shall take place outside of Canada. Our law could have no effect in the state of New York.


Newton Wesley Rowell: I think my hon. friend
overlooked the fact that this Parliament 199i
can control its own employees, and that our own agents employed outside of Canada are subject to our jurisdiction.


William Stevens Fielding: I think that in another part of the Civil Service law tlie^e is a provision that temporary employment shall not exceed so many days in any one year. I merely offer that for the consideration of the minister.


Newton Wesley Rowell: There is a provision under the law as it stands which will apply to all these cases, to the effect that temporary employment shall not be made for a longer period than six months. I think there also exists a provision that the Civil Service Commission may grant an extension, but that extension is limited to six months, and would apply to a'l such appointments as are covered by this section.
On Clause 3-appointments of civil servants who resigned and went on active war service overseas.


Isaac Ellis Pedlow: As I read this clause its application will be such that a civil servant who, in the early part of the war resigned his position and went overseas, upon his return is eligible only for the identical position which he vacated and at the very same salary. In the meantime young men who did not go overseas but remained in the service obtained promotion and an augmentation of salary from year to year and are four years ahead of the other man notwithstanding his valiant and laudable record. If my interpretation of this clause is correct it means that the young civil servant who went overseas to fight for Canada is discriminated against as compared with the young man who peacefully remained in the Government service at home. I know of a case in point where a youth resigned his position in the Civil Service in 1914, went overseas and remained there for four years. Upon his return to Canada he was re-admitted to the position he formerly held, but in the meantime those who remained had been advanced from year to year and were drawing a higher rate of pay. 'They were advanced both as regards status and salary, and this particular young man upon returning was given .only about two-thirds of the salary paid to' those who had stayed at home. I maintain that is discrimination against the young men who did their duty and fought for their country overseas.
. Mr. ROWELL: I think my hon. friend is in error. He' certainly is in error in his conception of the meaning and effect of

this clause. The clause in question is to remove 'a disability that now exists in this sense: M present a man who resigned from the service to go overseas stands in exactly the same position as any other applicant for appointment to the public service-he has no preferred position. This is to give him a preferred position, so to speak, for eligible posts i'n order that he may be reinstated without having to compete with others who have not been ini .the service or did not go overseas, and it provides that he may be appointed either at the salary he was receiving a't the time of his resignation, or the minimum salary of the class in (which the position is classified, whichever is the higher. In other words, he may be appointed to a class higher than the one .which he held when he went overseas, if he is qualified for it, and ini that case he .would secure a higher .salary. If he is not qualified for a higher class, he becomes eligible for reappointment at the salary *he was receiving when he went overseas. I have to knowledge of the particular case to which my hon. friend referred, but I do know .thait generally speaking the men who went overseas secured their promotions and increases during the period they were on such duty. That was the general rule and practice.
, Mr. PEDLOW: I would infer from the minister's remarks that the clause implies a discrimination. As a matter of fact it is a discrimination against the young men who went overseas fo-r the reason I have already stated. Those who went overseas in 1914 upon returning to Canada found that their associates who had remained at home had Ibeen promoted durihg their absence and were receiving a higher salary and enjoying higher rank than was vouchsafed to them. Then again there is the further point to be considered: Will these young men to .whom I have referred-who resigned their positions and went overseas-obtain consideration in the matter of superannuation and retirement allowances? Will the years that .they spent abroad be considered in the application of these features of the Civil Service Act?


Mr. STEELE:: 
Newton Wesley Rowell: I entirely agree with the sentiments expressed by my hon. friend. There are two classes involved:	First,
those who resigned and went overseas; second, those who went overseas and retained their membership in the service. The great hulk of the civil servants who went overseas are in this second class. Those who enlisted early in the war received their full pay in addition to their military pay; at a later date those who enlisted got whichever was the higher of the two scales

of pay; a.n<l those who enlisted after the Military Service Act came into force got their military pay only. But, iso far as increases of pay are concerned, the men who went overseas got their statutory increases just the same as those who remained at home. My hon. friend shakes his head, but that is my information, and that is the settled policy of the Government. If a man did not get his statutory increase, the matter should be brought to the attention of the commission and the injustice will be righted.
The case of the man who resigned from the service before going oversesas is different; he stands in the same position as any other man applying to re-enter the service. But this section is designed to put him in a better position than he is in now by giving him a preference on re-entering the service. If such cases as those mentioned by my hon. friend from South Perth (Mr. Steele), are brought to the attention of the commission they will be very carefully investigated and remedied, because the settled policy of the Government is that no man shall be prejudiced in his position in the service by reason of having gone overseas. If my hon. friends who have spoken will bring to the attention of the commission the particular cases they have in view they will be very carefully investigated.


Michael Steele: I am aware that the statutory increases of those men were provided for; but they have been prejudiced in having lost their promotion. As I have said, the men who remained at home have been advanced, to .the vacancies which occurred during the war, and the returned men have had to take subordinate positions, and consequently they are suffering the greatest hardship.	,


Newton Wesley Rowell: I think those oases will
be taken care of in the application of the reclassification, because under it a man is allocated to the class for which he is fitted by reason of his previous service, and no man is to receive less remuneration than he received under the old classification. But I repeat, if there are particular cases where any injustice has been suffered, the commision will, I am sure, thoroughly investigate them, if they are drawn to their attention, and will endeavour to find a remedy.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I think this is a proper amendment and will serve a very good purpose. The only feature I would like to suggest to the minister is that in making
up the lists, as there may be many applicants ahead of the returned man, he will be at a decided advantage.


Newton Wesley Rowell: Under the law as it
stands and the regulations of the Civil Service Commission the returned soldier gets the preferred position, being placed at the head of all civilian applicants for the same position, no matter when he made application.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: That may be a practice of the department, hut we know nothing about it and I would prefer to have it embodied in the statute. I would like to make it clear that the returned soldier is not to be secondary to any other man who may have passed the Civil Service examinations while the former was absent at the front.


William Stevens Fielding: The practice referred
to deals with all returned soldiers so they shall have priority over civilians. At first that was an advantage to the returned soldier, but as time went on the returned men became so numerous that this priority ceased to be of any great value. This clause seems to deal with men who. resigned from the Civil Service with the intention of leaving it; they voluntarily broke their connection; therefore they cannot stand in precisely the same position as the men who, by arrangement, retained their place in the service.


Newton Wesley Rowell: 
Mr. SINCLAIR (Guyshorough):: Does
the minister mean that appointment is confined to the department in which the soldier was at the time he resigned? Or will the soldier be at liberty to apply for a position in any other department in the Civil Service ?


Newton Wesley Rowell: He is at liberty to apply for a position in any branch of the service for which he is qualified.


John Ewen Sinclair: Without examination?
Mr. ROWE.LL:	Without examination.
On section 4-Annual increases unless classification provides otherwise.


John Howard Sinclair: This section refers to temporary employees required "outside the city of Ottawa." Well, places like Shanghai, Nagasaki and Timbuctoo are among such "outside" places. The reference here is undoubtedly to temporary employees required in Canada outside the city of Ottawa. It is provided that the rate of payment to temporary employees outside shall not exceed the maximum rate of the class to which such employees belong, but there is no limit in the case of men employed outside the Dominion of Canada, except that the rate shall be the current rate in the locality where the men are employed.


Newton Wesley Rowell: In the case of men temporarily employed outside of Canada you must pay the prevailing rate in the locality, that is ia necessary condition of securing the assistance. In points outside of Ottawa, in other cities in Canada, officers of the various departments have found themselves unable to secure temporary assistance at the minimum rate fixed in these schedules, and in order to secure the temporary employees absolutely necessary to the work of the departments, regard must be had to the prevailing rates of pay in these localities.


William Stevens Fielding: Would it not be well to insert the words "in Canada" after the word "required" in line 12?


Newton Wesley Rowell: Yes, I think that would meet the point, and I so move.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Newton Wesley Rowell: With regard to subsection (6), I confess that it seems rather drastic and a little too cast-iron. There are oases where temporary employees are necessary, where you do not want to increase the permanent staff-in connection with the administration of taxation laws and other work of a temporary character, as that of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment, soldiers settlement, and so on. You may have a person temporarily employed who is rendering thoroughly efficient service, and the result of passing this clause in its present form would be to prevent the possibility of any increase of his salary, though if he resigned you would have to pay a much larger sum to get an inexperienced person to take his place. My own impression is that while that provision has been put in to make the law clear-and there is some doubt about it at the present time-it would be only right to modify it
[Mr. Rowell.1
so as to make possible an increase in order to retain a useful servant who has served temporarily.


William Stevens Fielding: It contemplates only short employment, does it not?


Newton Wesley Rowell: It contemplates limited employment, but the employment may be extended, with the approval of the Civil Service Commission. It is a question upon which I should like to have an expression of opinion from hon. members. Personally I think it would be in the public interest to provide that in cases where an employee has served for a certain length of time there may be an increase of salary. The clause as it appears in the Bill is in the form in which the commission submitted it to me, but my own thought is that it would be desirable to put in a proviso something like this: "unless he has been so employed for more than one year." Of course, that would apply only to exceptional cases where the employment is for six months and the commission, for reasons which appear satisfactory to them, decide to extend the employment.


William Stevens Fielding: Is the possibility of extension unlimited?


Newton Wesley Rowell: They can only extend the employment for six months at a time.


William Stevens Fielding: That means that it is unlimited?


John Howard Sinclair: Does'this question have any bearing upon the qres-tion of bonus?


Newton Wesley Rowell: It affects only the question of salary.


John Howard Sinclair: I have been under the impression that a permanent employee is a man employed under Order in Council or appointed in the ordinary way by the Civil Service Commission. I think my hon. friend will find that in the various departments there are a large number of men who are classed as temporary employees-men who have been in the Government service for years, but are still on the temporary list. I have come across cases where men who had been in the service for many years were complaining that they had never been put on the permanent list. I do. not know whether that is the case at present I know that it was the case some time ago.


Newton Wesley Rowell: The question raised by my hon. friend is undoubtedly ah important one. As he says, there are in the

public service a large number of persons who are classified as temporary employees. There have always been provisions in the Act for making temporary appointments, which have been renewed from time to time; and I believe that there are in the public service many hundreds who. have been in the service for a very considerable period and are still classed as temporary. Under the reorganization which is now in progress, it is intended to straighten that matter out, and the Civil Service Commission will take up the question of those who have been in the position of temporary employees where the work they are doing is necessary and of a permanent character. I understand that their view is to recommend to the 'Government that all employees in that position should have their appointments made permanent, so as to get out of what I concede is an undesirable situation, viz: having in the public service a substantial number of persons, who are doing work really of a permanent character and who have been in the service for years, and are classed as temporary employees.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Does subclause (6) not leave some discretion to the minister or deputy minister as regards promotion? If it is not intended to give the minister or the deputy, or whoever has to deal with the matter, some discretion, why is the word "deemed" inserted? If it is the intention that no discretion is to be exercised, why does the subclause not read?-
No temporary employee shall be eligible to receive any increase of compensation under the provisions of this Act.
That is, he has no inherent right to claim promotion. If the deputy minister thinks it is right for him to get promotion, it is open to the deputy minister to grant it.


Mr.   KOWELL@: That clause was inserted to clear up a doubt which appeared to have existed under the law as it now stands, that temporary employees were eligible for an increase in salary; it was inserted to declare that they should not be so eligible. I quite agree with my hon. friend that it could be framed the other way and would, I think, mean exactly the same thing.


William Stevens Fielding: Temporary clerks whose services have been particularly meritorious should be the first ones put into permanent positions. These men were, in many instances, (Capable of filling the positions, but they were not prepared to take the examination. Hundreds of them have been
in the service for years, and their case de-' serves a good deal of consideration.


Mr.   KOWELL@: Another class of case which I had in view in suggesting a possible amendment in this clause was this. Where the class of work a man is doing is of a temporary character, you do not wish to create a^permanent position and put him in that position, because we all acknowledge that once a man is put into a position permanently, it is pretty difficult to get him out again.


Samuel William Jacobs: He may die.


Mr.   KOWELL@: Yes, but not always. If the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean), who has had more to do with the framing of this legislation than any hon. member, thinks the amendment in the present form meets the case, I am quite willing to leave it just as it is here.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: The Minister of Railways' (Mr. J. D. Reid) tells me that this is a misconstruction altogether; that there should be a period after the word "deemed," and that that word should read "damned" -"no	temporary employee shall be
damned". That is what the Minister of Railways says, and he is an older minister and member than the President of the Council. That should be a consideration.


John Howard Sinclair: It is the Government that ought to be damned for making these numerous appointments of temporary employees. I understand the minister says that it is not desirable to have many of them, and if that be the case, I should like to know who was responsible for the appointment of 22,000-odd employees since the Armistice. Never before was there a period in the history of this country when ministers became so reckless in the matter of appointments. This practice of making so many temporary appointments is bad for the service. Some arrangement should be made whereby if a man is retained in the service for, say a year, he should be given a permanent position or go out of the service.


Mr. A. K. MACLEAN:: That would destroy the whole system.


John Howard Sinclair: He
should either go out of the service or become permanent. This is being used for all kinds of indirect and improper purposes throughout the country. An election comes along, and some man who has influence with the Government may threaten a temdOMMONS
porary employee, saying to him: "You aie a temporary employee and you had better do what you are told." It is a bad system, and it seems to be increasing year by year instead of lessening. I drew attention to this matter before, but I do not want the minister to overlook the fact that the Government seem, during the last two years, to have gone very far in the way of appointments of temporary employees. If it be bad practice, it ought to be stopped. I do not know whether the minister would entertain my proposal or not, but there should be some period of employment at the end of which a man should be entitled to the rights of an ordinary civil servant, if he is left in the service.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: The committee
will remember that the Civil Service Act provides a scale of compensation for all employees, and the purpose of this clause is simply to declare that temporary employees shall not participate in the different rates of compensation. Personally, I think that is a sensible provision, particularly at the present time. There are in the public service tw.o classes of temporary employees. In years gone by, as my hon. friend (Mr. Sinclair, Guysborough) stated, persons were appointed to the public service temporarily, and they still remain in the service, but I do not think that there are a large number of that class. On the other hand, during the war a large number of persons were appointed to the public service temporarily, and within the next twelve months, I fancy between ten and fifteen thousand of these temporary employees will be released. These persons are to be found largely in the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment and in certain branches of the Militia Department. The appointment of such large numbers to these two branches of the public service was unavoidable, but this condition of affairs should come to an end some time soon. I quite agree with my hon. friend that at some time in the future some arrangement should be made where temporary employees appointed many years ago should be made permanent. There are in the public service persons appointed twenty years ago who are technically but temporary employees, and some consideration should be given to such oases. It would be unfortunate to drop this clause at the present time when there are in the public service so many temporary employees, a large number of whom must be retired within a year or shortly afterwards. It would be

well, therefore, to continue the clause as it stands.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: What is the necessity for this clause at all?


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: Some doubt has arisen as to whether or not temporary employees are entitled to the same rate of compensation as permanent employees. I did not know myself that there was any doubt about it. I suppose, however, that temporary employees have been claiming the same rates of compensation and the annual increase that permanent employees receive, and that this is merely to remove the doubt.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Has the minister any
idea of how many temporary employees there would be in any of the large departments-Public Works, for instance?


Newton Wesley Rowell: I have not the figures
here, but I will try and get them and show them to my hon. friend. All the large departments have a large number of temporary employees, some of whom may be employed for years. Of course, the 22,000 employees that my hon. friend refers to covers all seasonal employees, those on the Welland 'Canal, for instance. Any one who is familiar with public works and the rate at which men go off and new come on would know that if you employ 22,000 men it does not mean that there are 22,000 new positions. On an important public work you may have a turn over two or three times in a season.


John Howard Sinclair: My hon. friend does not think that labour on public works is appointed by the Civil Service Commission?
iMr. ROWELL: They have to be certified to by the Civil Service Commission.
Mr. 'SINCLAIR (Guysborough):	Ordinary labourers employed on public works?


Newton Wesley Rowell: Yes.


Samuel William Jacobs: Do they have to pass an examination?


John Howard Sinclair: My hon. friend does not mean that a gang of Italians employed for two or three days to dig a trench on some public work have to be certified by the commission?


Newton Wesley Rowell: Not unless they are required for a longer period than thirty days. Where the period of employment is longer than that, the names must be reported to the Civil Service 'Commission and the 22,-

000	employees that my hon. friend has referred to includes employees on public works throughout Canada who have been employed for short periods. They are included in the list of temporary employees.


Samuel William Jacobs: Why is that?


Newton Wesley Rowell: Because the law as it
stands requires it, and it has also this real function:	If the Civil Service law is properly administered by the commission-and
1	am sure the commission is putting forth its utmost efforts to administer it honestly -this prevents the abuse, to which my hon. friend has referred, of putting on a large number of employees on a public work at election time. It is intended to be a curb on unnecessary employment in the public service in any form whatsoever.


Samuel William Jacobs: So the Government at
election time would know how many thousand men were employed on different public works throughout the country. In what way would that be a curb on the abuse?
[Mr. ROWELL :	The commission would
have a complete record of these employees.


John Howard Sinclair: There
was always a complete record on the payroll of the departments, so they have no more complete record now than before. I am not sure that I quite understood my hon. friend. 'Say the Public Works Department are building a bridge, and that there is a stonemason there cutting stone. If he works more than thirty days, has he to have an appointment -from the Civil Service Commission?


Newton Wesley Rowell: No. The appointment
has to be reported to the commission by the department, and the man cannot be employed beyond thirty days unless the Civil Service Commission approves. It acts as a check upon 'employment of unnecessary labour on any government work.


John Howard Sinclair: It does
apply to such a man as I have mentioned?


Mr. BOWELL :: Yes. If an ordinary workman is employed for more than thirty days on a government work carried on by one of the departments, it must be reported to the commission, and the man cannot be continued beyond the thirty days without the commission's approval.


John Howard Sinclair: What do the commission do when they receive the report of his employment? Do they examine the man and see if he is capable, and then re-appoint him? Or what do they do?


Newton Wesley Rowell: I believe the procedure
is this: Under ordinary conditions, unless there was some reason that would lead them to make a special inquiry, they would accept the certificate of the engineer in charge of the work that the man was actually required and was competent for the work he had to do.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Is there any such provision in the Bill? I do not profess to be familiar with the Civil Service Act, but it would strike me as extraordinary that you could not get a few labourers or any number of labourers on a public building or some other work without having to go through this routine.


Newton Wesley Rowell: It is simply because
they are in the public service. The Act is so broad that it covers all employees in the public service, therefore, as they are in the public service, they have to come under the jurisdiction of the commission in the way I have mentioned.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Last year, I think it
was, when we were dealing with the War Purchasing Commission, I asked my hon. * friend how many employees there were in that branch, and if my memory serves me correctly, he replied that there were about 300 men and women. Is that commission still intact, and are these temporary employees still on the pay-roll of the Government?


Newton Wesley Rowell: My hon- friend is in
error in his recollection. The figure I gave was somewhere between 200 and 300, as being the number employed in all the purchasing branches of all departments of the Government. I am not sure of the exact number employed in the purchasing commission, but I jthink it is somewhere between 30 and 40. The figure I gave last year related to all the purchasing branches of all departments of the Government.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I am sorry to discover my memory is not quite correct, and equally sorry that the minister was not as explicit as he usually is in giving the number last year. Taking it as 40 or 50, are these still temporary employees?


Newton Wesley Rowell: Yes.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: When will the minister be able to dispose of them?


John Hampden Burnham: What does the commission intend to do in the long run with regard to men who heretofore have been entitled to receive the pay prevalent in the

district? Lately, it seams, a great many of the men -who have 'been described as permanent or yearly employees of the Government, have had their pay cut down from what it was last year, and the explanation given by the commission is that on account of reclassification their pay had to be cut down.
Progress reported.
At (Six o'clock the House resumed and then took recess.
After Eeeess.
The House resumed at Eight o'clock.


PRIVATE BILLS.
[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 142 (from the Senate), for the relief of Jennie Wright.^Mr. Fripp.
Biil No. 143 (from the Senate), for the relief of Alfred Charles Edwin Westley.-Mr. Fripp.
Bill No. 144 (from the Senate), for the relief of George Orville Scott.-Mr. Fripp.
Bill No. 146 (from the Senate), for the relief of Harry Davis.-Mr. Wallace.
Bill No. 147 (from the Senate), for the relief of Elizabeth Conway Murray.-Mr. Fripp.
Bill No. 149 (from the Senate), for the relief of Frank Fulsom.-Mr. Fraser.
Bill No. 150 (from the Senate), for the relief of James Proudfoot.-Mr. Hocken.

[Stage Direction]
House again in committee on Bill No. 53, to amend the Civil Service Act 1918, and the Civil Service Amendment Act 1919.-Hon. Mr. Rowell; Mr. Boivin in the Chair.
John Hampden Burnham: Would the minister be kind enough to explain why it is that the employees on the Trent canal for 'example, who are hired by the year-and have been hired year by year for several years-and have been replaced by many returned soldiers, now receive less than they received a year ago? They were notified this year that the pay would go down considerably. They complained to me, and I brought the matter before the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. J. D. Reid). The minister said he thought it was a strange thing, he did not understand it; but on considering the matter he came to the conclusion that it was not his business but was the business of the Civil Service Commission. Accordingly I sent a written complaint, together with the letter

of the Minister of Railways and Canals, to the commission. The commission said that the reason of the decrease was that they were bound by the re-classification and the re-classification had nothing to do, so far as I can understand from their letter, with the current rate of pay in the district for similar work, but was altogether something settled by those who made that re-classification. That is to say that if a certain class of work in a locality, which the canal staff had hitherto been paid for at the rate of say $60 a month and the bonus, under the classification order was considered worth only $50 the latter amount was given, although the people employed on the general work in the locality were getting $60 or perhaps $80. The result of the reduction in pay is impairing the efficiency of the canal work and producing very great discontent, and I would therefore like to know what the minister, or the commission, propose to do about the matter.


Newton Wesley Rowell: I am not familiar with
the point raised by the hon. member, and therefore cannot answer him specifically. I will, however, look into the matter and obtain the necessary information. My understanding of the law and the practice is that if the men are paid a stated salary- that is if they are not paid the prevailing rate of wages-while under the classification it may be that some are classified at lower salaries than they have hitherto been receiving, the Act provides that no man shall be reduced in his salary-that is that no existing employee shall have his salary reduced-by reason of the change in the classification. So that if any of these men have been in the employ of the Government and have been receiving a higher rate of pay than the new classification provides, the Act itself contains provision that they shall not be reduced in salary by reason of that fact. As to the particular case my hon. friend has in view, I shall be very glad to look into it and give the hon. member the desired information as soon as I obtain it.


John Hampden Burnham: I may say for the further information of the minister that this is not an isolated case. There are a great many cases of the kind, and if I understand the minister to say that the pay of people who have been for several years in these positions cannot be reduced, nevertheless the effect is to reduce the pay of returned, soldiers. When the returned soldier is appointed to fill a new job, or to replace a man who is not re-hired, he is taken on at reduced pay, and it results in great indignation and great hardship. This does not

refer merely to those who are hired by the season, but to those who are hired and paid by the day for some continued time on public work of various kinds, and who are now to be paid at a very considerably less rate than others in the locality. Hitherto it has been the custom of the 'Government to pay the curent rate of wages and the men in the public employ were perfectly satisfied. But that is not the practice now, and the men are very much dissatisfied; I do not know of anything in fact that is producing equal discontent.


John Howard Sinclair: The
minister gave the committee the impression before six o'clock that the Civil Service Commission were appointing ordinary labourers. Now I am not able to find any authority in the Civil Service Act for such appointments by the commission. Section 23 of the Civil Service Act, (which refers to temporary employment, reads as follows:
When, from a temporary pressure of work, extra assistance is required in any branch of the Civil Service, the commission may, on the written report of the deputy head that such extra assistance is required, authorize the employment of such number of temporary employees as are required to carry on the work.
Then subsection 2 goes on to say that persons who have successfully passed the competitive examination will have an opportunity of being appointed to this temporary work, and such temporary employment in the Civil Service shall only be authorized for such time, not exceeding six months, as the commission deems necessary, and the authority by which the employment is authorized shall be mentioned in the certificate of qualification isued by the commission. That is all I can find in the Civil Service Act relating to the employment of temporary employees. I think the minister must have been mistaken when he told us that the hod carrier, the stone mason, and the ordinary labourer were appointed by the Civil Service Commission if their services were required for more than thirty days. If that is the practice of the commission, I would like the minister to tell us where they get the authority to make these appointments?


Newton Wesley Rowell: My hon. friend has not repeated quite accurately what I stated before adjournment in reference to the matter. What I said was that these men were taken on by the Government officers of the district, but that they could not be continued beyond thirty days without the approval of the Civil Service Commission.


John Howard Sinclair: There is nothing like that in this section.


Newton Wesley Rowell: The section to which my hon. friend refers provides:
When employees are required on short notice for emergency work outside the city of Ottawa, the responsible agent or officer of the department requiring such extra assistance may engage the necessary employees, and the said agent or officer in such case shall forthwith report to the commission through the deputy head of his department the names of the persons so employed. No such employment shall extend beyond thirty days unless approved by the commission.
I understand that under that section the deputy head of the department reports to the commission the temporary employees taken on in connection with public works, such as the Welland canal, and that unless their employment is 'approved the department is not authorized to continue them beyond the thirty days.


John Howard Sinclair: Government-the Prime Minister is now here-that some member of the Government should Ibe assigned to have supervision over the Civil Service. A year or two ago a certain member of .the Government discharged the duty of looking .after the service, and I have no- doubt he performed it very well during the short time 'he was attending to. it. Prom what I can learn there is now no member of the Government whose duty it is to deal with questions that are constantly arising in the service. Hon. members who are listening to me I suppose have had tlhe same experience that 1 have had: Complaints made by civil servants that .they are unjustly treated. I was told a few days ago by a civil servant in whom I have the utmost confidence,

a man who is perfectly satisfied with his own position and salary-that when .a case of injustice arises in regard to classification and other -matters coming under the Civil Service Commission there is really no one in the Government who takes enough interest in -the service to deal with it. I do not want to give the man's name, but I am .afraid there is a certain amount of truth in his statement.


Alexander Kenneth Maclean: He should go -to the commission.


John Howard Sinclair: (Guyslbo-rough): Some minister should be assigned -the duty of dealing with questions arising in the Civil Service, and in cases of grievance he should be the man to go -to and should be responsible for their adjustment. I would like that suggestion to be seriously .considered by the Government.


Newton Wesley Rowell: I would point out to my hon. friend that any employee of the public service who jhae any grievance, imaginary or real, in connection with the classification or its application has the Civil Service Commission to go to. More than that, the -commission, with (the approval of the Government -constituted'what is known as a Board of Hearing. That board consists of two representatives named by the Civil Service itself, two appointed by the deputy ministers,	viz.:-the	Assistant
Deputy Minister of Public Works and the Assistant Auditor General, and is presided over by one of the Civil Service Commissioners. Any complaints in reference to the classification are dealt with by that board. Any other complaints are dealt with by the commission. So I do not think any civil servant has any .ju-st ground to complain that there is no person to whom he can present his grievance. In addition, they 
all have their superior officers in each department, and in case they feel themselves unjustly dealt with they can appeal to those superior officers to have their cases investigated.


John Hampden Burnham: -Might I say that the minister's statement of the case leaves everything to he desired? Ninety-nine per cent of the employees have no more knowledge of how -to go -about making a complaint than they have of flying. They very pro-parly have the idea that they should make their cam-plaint first to their foreman, who in turn passes on the complaint to the chief -engineer, but naturally the chief engineer does not want to get himself in wrong at headquarters and he passes on the complaint in a very perfunctory manner. The consequence is that as the much despised member of Parliament has no status in the mutter, the employee in any particular constituency has no recourse to his -friend the member. On the contrary, the employee is invited to climb to the top fifteen steps at a time, which he cannot do, and won't do, and -does not understand how to do. Much as I respect the minister, I must point out another thing, that he has been -able to deal with this particular thing only after -being prompted by the man in front of him. I have nothing against the Civil Service Commission, I suppose they are working to the best of their ability, but this system which expects the poor humble .employee along a canal or any other public work to sit down and formulate a complaint, and to know the devious ways of getting it to the various Boards of -Hearing over the heads o.f his superiors, foremen., or superintendents or whatever they .may foe-this system, I say, expects too much, for that poor man never does what is expected of him, and the consequence is that until the discontent and murmuring becomes fierce there is nothing-heard -about it.


Mr. CHAPLIN:: The minister referred a moment ago to the Welland Canal. I would like to know from him who makes these appointments of lock-beepers, and soon. Surely the Civil Service -Commission cannot make thes-e appointments; somebody other than the member of Parliament for the constituency must be responsible for them?


Newton Wesley Rowell: In the case of lock-keepers and men occupying positions of that kind, the procedure is to advertise locally for applications for the position. These

applications go to the Civil Service Commission and the engineer in charge of the work is asked by the commission to make a recommendation in connection with the matter. Upon getting the applications, coupled with such information or recommendation as the local engineer in charge may submit, the 'Civil Service Commission makes the appointment.


James Dew Chaplin: I must say that I never saw one of those advertisements. I would he glad indeed to know where they could be found. It looks to me as if the so-called patronage has been handed over to some one in the country other than the member for the county. I am not opposed to the Civil Service Commission in any way, but I certainly do not believe that it is good policy to hand over to some one Oise in the county the matter of these appointments.


John Howard Sinclair: Does the minister say that appointments made to positions in the Department of Railways and Canals are under the control of the Civil Service Commission?


Mr. J. D. REID:: All appointments to positions in the Railway Department, not including, of course, the Canadian National Railways, are made by the Civil Service Commission. If we want a common labourer or lock-master or a man to fill any position of that kind on one of the canals, the Chief Engineer of the Department of Railways writes to the secretary of the commission and tells him that he wants such a man. What procedure the Civil Service Commission adopts in filling those positions I do not know, but I do know that from the minister down, not one employee of the Railway Department has anything further to do with the matter or knows who the appointee will be until the commission advises that such and such a man is to fill the position.


John Howard Sinclair: I am not familiar with the matter of the* canals, but I understood that appointments to positions on the Government railways were made by the Minister of Railways-


John Dowsley Reid: Oh, no.


John Howard Sinclair: (Guysborough):-or one of his officers ; that such appointments were made by the Civil Service Commission. Never am I mistaken about that?


Newton Wesley Rowell: It has always been made clear that the Canadian National railways did not come under the Civil Service Commission. All appointments in that connection are made by the Board of Management.


John Dowsley Reid: My hon. friend (Mr. J. H. Sinclair) has said, as I understood him, that all appointments on the Government railways were made by the minister. I can hardly understand the hon. member making such a statement, because he knows that the Canadian National railways are operated by a board appointed-
Mr. 'SINCLAIR (Guysborough): I did not mean to say that the minister was undertaking the work of the board.


John Dowsley Reid: Appointments to positions on the Canadian National railways are madie by the Board of Management. The department has not interfered with such appointments; they do not feel that they have any power to interfere.


John Howard Sinclair: I am not suggesting that anybody is interfering at all; that is not what I am speaking of. Let me make the matter clear: I am pointing out that men employed on the Government railways are not appointed by the Civil Service Commission. I think that is well known to everybody. Now I am informed that another class of men employed are pot under the Civil Service Commission,- and I would like to get the information from the minister-that is, the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment.


Newton Wesley Rowell: My hon. friend is correct in that. By the Act of last session and on the report of the committee which considered the question of civil re-establishment, it was provided that the department might make appointments direct, subject to submitting to the commission a report of the appointments. That was done for the fairly obvious reason, I should think, that the administration of that department would be somewhat akin to that of the Department of Militia. There was the matter of hospitals and the care of the men being treated. There were the schools for vocational training and the other branches of service included in the work of this department. Immediate action was necessary to care for the men upon demobilization. The appointments were not of a permanent character, the department being a temporary one, and accordingly the House by express enactment made provision for the department making the necessary appointments and reporting these appointments to the commission.


John Ewen Sinclair: Are any other departments besides Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment and the Canadian National railways outside the jurisdiction of the commission?


Newton Wesley Rowell: My hon. friend is aware that when the income tax was put into operation the employees in connection therewith were appointed under the authority of the minister of the department. In the Estimates for income tax each year there is a provision for the appointment of officials without requiring examination or selection by the Civil Service Commission.
iMr. McKENZIE: I would like to remind the Minister of Railways that he seems to exercise considerable jurisdiction over the employees of the Government railways.


Georges Henri Boivin: We are discussing a Bill to amend the Civil iService Act. The minister hias already informed the committee that appointments to positions on the Canadian National railways are not made by the Civil Service 'Commission. I fear that if we do not leave the railway we shall soon be very far from the matter now under consideration by the committee.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Perhaps the committee will permit me to ask the minister one question in reply to what he said.


Georges Henri Boivin: The hon. member may proceed, but only with the unanimous consent of the committee.
Mr. McKENZIE,: Last year when we were discussing the Grand Trunk Railway Bill some one suggested that the Officers of the road might naturally be favourable to switching traffic to Portland. The minister immediately rose and said he would like to see the officer who would undertake to do any such thing while he was Minister of Railways; that if he found any such man in his employ he would make short work of him. Was. it under the Civil Service Act that the minister expected to exercise that jurisdiction?


John Dowsley Reid: Well, that was a long time ago. Before answering 'that question I would have to refresh my memory as to what I said.


Frank S. Cahill: Are the employees of the Marine and Fisheries Department all under the Civil Service Commission?


Newton Wesley Rowell: Marine and Fisheries Department, yes.


Frank S. Cahill: The sailors and all others employed by that department?


Newton Wesley Rowell: All except those in the merchant marine, which is operated in connection with the Canadian National railways.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That branch would employ the larger number, would it
not?


Newton Wesley Rowell: Of course, a very large nnmber of sailors would be employed in the merchant marine, but the whole transportation system is carried on under or in association with the Board of Management operating the railways.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Could the minister give us any idea as to the number of employees under the control of the Board of Management of the railways and the Merchant Marine as compared with the number of employees of the department who are appointed by the Civil Service Commission?


Newton Wesley Rowell: I have no idea how many are employed on the railways.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: They are very much the larger number, are they not?


Frank S. Cahill: Are any other departments than these four outside the control of the Civil Service Commission?


Newton Wesley Rowell: What does my hon. friend mean by the "four"?


Frank S. Cahill: Merchant marine, Railways and Canals, Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment and Income Tax.


Newton Wesley Rowell: My hon. friend is not
correct when he mentions the Department of Railways and Canals. All appointments in that department come under the Civil Service Commission. Appointments to the national system of railways and the national merchant marine do not; they are made by the board of management. Appointments to the Income Tax branch and the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment do not come under the Civil Service Commission, and the Soldier Settlement Board is in the same position in this respect as the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment.


Frank S. Cahill: What is the medium of
advertising for men who are required in different places now that the Official Record has gone out of business?


Newton Wesley Rowell: The usual form of advertising is first that an advertisement appears officially in the Canada Gazette. Then communications are sent to all the Great War Veteran Associations, because under our law the war veterans are to have the preference. Posters are put up in post offices, public schools and other public places in the district. In cases of local employment, such as I have mentioned, a poster that will reach the public is put up in local public institutions. I am informed that that is the procedure.


Mr. ARTHURS:: Who puts up these
posters?


Mr. OHAPLIN:: It seems to me that advertising for such help as lock tenders is a very roundabout way of doing business. We have in Ottawa a commission who are appointing men whom they have never seen, never expect to see, have never examined and know nothing about. These men may be five hundred miles away from Ottawa, and they are recommended to the commission by somebody in the district. I certainly object to that way of doing things. It was not so contemplated, as I understand it, in the original discussions we had in regard to the matter in the House, and I want to put myself on record as being opposed to that way of doing business.


John Hampden Burnham: I would suggest that
a new examination be held, and that is, into the common decency and morality of the common ordinary man or member. It is quite evident from all the attacks made upon this system that all the wrongdoing is traced down, or supposed to be traced down, to the fact that every hon. member on this side is to every hon. member on that side of the House a wrongdoer and that every hon. member on that side of the House is to every hon. member on this side of the House under suspicion. The sooner we cut a great deal of this out the better, because at bottom it is only commonplace, vulgar partisanship. Let us trust each other, man as man, and have faith in ourselves, and we shall get work done. No work on earth will stand the test when a suspicion such as that exists.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I-wish to say a word or two in support of what the hon. member for Antigonish and Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) and the hon. member for Peterborough West (Mr. Burnham) have said in reference to civil servants. They brought forward the argument very well that a civil servant who has any grievance has really no person to
whom he can go with his complaint. We were told by the President of the Council (Mr. Rowell) that the deputy minister and the Civil Service Commission are at the disposal of the civil servant. Those are just the two parties against whom he would be likely to have a complaint. He might have a complaint that the deputy minister was not giving him a fair show, and in such a case what would be the good of going to the deputy minister? He would be turned down. He might have a complaint that the Civil Service Commission was not treating him rightly, and in such a case, what would be the good of going to it? What he really wants is to be able to lay his complaint before an independent person over whom the deputy minister or the Civil Service Commission has no influence at all. The only person who would be in that position is a minister of the Crown who would be supposed to act absolutely independently between the civil servant and. the higher authority. Some minister should have general supervision over the Civil Service, so that they could come to him with their complaints. Then the minister would call the deputy minister, not necessarily of his own department, but of any department, and the chairman of the Civil Service Commission, and let this civil servant who had the complaint tell his story, with the deputy minister and the chairman of the commission present to see whether the complaint of the civil servant was well founded or not. The minister, after hearing the facts, would be in a position to deal with the case on its merits, and the civil servant would then be satisfied either that his grievance would be rectified or that he had no case. But under present circumstances he will always have a suspicion, if his complaint is against the deputy minister, that the deputy minister is not treating him rightly, or if his complaint is against the Civil Service Commission that the commission is not treating him rightly. It is surely desirable for the Government and for everybody else that that large body of civil servants should feel that they are being treated fairly and squarely and that if they have a grievance there is an absolutely independent court to which they can go. For that reason I support the contention of my hon. friends that there should be some minister-perhaps the Prime Minister has too much to do-to whom an appeal may be made in eases of this kind.


Robert Laird Borden: A good many years ago I was informed that a certain Prime Minister was told by one of his ministers that he made a rule in his depart-

ment that no civil servant holding a status lower than that of first-class clerk should have a right -to speak to: him with regard to hi-s affairs or the business of the depart-men/t. The then Prime Minister replied, "I know that perfectly well, because they all come to speak to me about matters that should have been submitted to you." I can inform my hon. friend that the grievance which he is expressing on behalf of civil servants is entirely a fanciful one. I have had some experience, for nearly nine years, of this matter, and I can assure him thalt civil servants ait Ottawa and throughout the country have not the slightest difficulty in making their grievances known to the Government. During the past nine years, on numerous occasions, I have received civil servants who desired to express to me their view that in some respect or another they were not receiving the consideration that was their due. As a matter of fact, at the present time, they have more facilities than they ever had before in that regard. During the past three years we have had a minister who, so far as the duties of his department would permit, has devoted special attention to the claims of civil servants. Some time ago we established a board to which the President of the Cbuncil (Mr. Rowell) alluded, and I really think there is no serious difficulty in the way of a civil servant who desires to make representations to the Government, Such representations eventually fin'd their way, not only to the minister of the department, but to the 'Prime Minister, and finally they come before the Government as a whole.


Mr. GATJVREAU:: I wrant to say just
a few words as to the way in which men working for the Public Works Department *are chosen. Take the case of a wharf to he repaired in my riding, as happened last year. If the men are chosen by the resident -engineer and by the chief carpenter, those officers, of course, are responsible for their choice. These -are the men who will work if they are required for a period of less than thirty days. Of course, they should n-ot be chosen in the first place if they are not able to do the work required of them. If they are req-uireid for a longer period than thirty days the chief engineer forwards the names picked out by the chief carpent 1 and sends them to the Civil Service Commission at Ottawa, and those are the men chosen for the longer periods. This matter is so simple that I cannot see why there is any opposition.
'['Sir Robert Borden.]
Section agreed- to.
-Oin section 5-classification deemed to have come into force on, and salaries payable from April 1, 1919.


Newton Wesley Rowell: I beg to move to insert
as subsection 2 this clause, an amendment which I shall now read, and the present subsection 2 will then become subsection 3. The reading of the clause will explain the reason for its insertion:
Persons filling positions the compensation of which is or has been fixed at prevailing rates under the classification or any amendment thereof, and persons who have been retired from or have left the public service, shall not participate in any benefit resulting from the provisions of this section, making the classification retroactive to the 1st day of April, 1919.
Hon. members will see ithat if persons have left the public service since the first day of April, 1919, there is no reason why the -country should pay additional compensation, and where persons are (receiving the prevailing rates of pay there would seem to be n-o reason why any -special benefit should accrue to them from making the classification retroactive.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Why has this [DOT]change been mla-d-e in the Act, making its provisions retroactive for one year?


Newton Wesley Rowell: We -are making it retroactive^ because when this whole matter was under -consideration in the early part of the year 1919 and various delegations of the Civil -Service w-aited upon the Government, -particularly representatives of the different branches of the postal service, the Government at that time believed that the classification would be sufficiently advanced to be brought into operation in -the year 1919, and these representatives of the different postal organizations were assured that it would go into effect for the year 1919. It so happened that the classification was not sufficiently advanced to make it operative during the year 1919, and when the legislation w-as passed last autumn it was provided that it should co-me into force on the first day of April, 1920, because at that time it was believed that the -classification would not be completed so that it could be applied before that date. The Act Of last session was passed in that form. When the Act was before the House the question of making it retroactive w-as raised, and my hon. friend (Mr. A. K. Maclean), who w-a)s in charge of the Ed-11, said he would give the matter consideration and see whether in- view of wh-at had taken

place it would be right to make it retroactive. The Government would consider the matter in the meantime, he said, and if they reached the conclusion that it would be right to make the legislation retroactive an amendment would be introduced this session to make it so. The Government, after considering the whole situation, and having regard to the representations that were made in .the early part of the year 1919 to these representatives of the Civil Service, reached the conclusion that it was only fair and right that the classification should be made retroactive. Undoubtedly, these civil servants relied upon the Government's statement at that time, and believed that the Act would come into force as from the first day Of April, 1919.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What was the ground upon which the Government thought it fair and right to make the Act retroactive?


Newton Wesley Rowell: On this ground. The
Civil Service Commission in recommending to the Government a certain bonus recommended it on the basis of this classification going into effect, and not on the basis of the old classification. My hon. friend will see this set forth in the introduction to the classification submitted to Parliament. Therefore, in order to carry out the understanding with the Civil Service, the Government decided to recommend that the classification should be made retroactive.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In the Estimates that have been brought down, there is mention of the .fact that they do not contain the necessary details because of the re-classification of the service not being ready. Can my hon. friend tell us if the re-classification has been completed, and if so, when Parliament will be favoured with a copy?


Newton Wesley Rowell: The re-classification is
completed subject to certain appeals that have been made from it and which have not yet been disposed of by the Board of Hearing. Under the Civil Service Act the iCivil Service Commission has power to vary the existing classification subject to the approval of the Governor in Council. Appeals can be made by any class of the Civil Service against their classification. These are heard by the Board of Hearing. From the Board of Hearing a recommendation goes to the Civil Service for approval and if approved it must come to the Governor in Council for approval before it becomes effective. If it involves any increased pay-200
ment of money, it cannot go into effect until Parliament votes the money. Now, a large number of appeals have been heard and determined, but there are still some appeals pending. Subject to the determination of these appeals, the reclassification is complete. There is, of course, not only the reclassification itself, but the application of the classification to the service, that is, fitting each individual official in the service into his appropriate class. My hon. friend will see that that is an enormous undertaking where you have nearly 50,000 civil servants to he dealt with and each put into his appropriate class. I am glad to be able to advise my hon. friend that the application of the classification to the service is very nearly completed also. It is completed in the Departments of Agriculture, Archives, Auditor General, Civil Service Commission, Commission of Conservation, External Affairs, Finance, Indian Affairs, Insurance, Interior, International Joint Commission, Library of Parliament, Mines, Naval Service, Board of Pension Commissioners, Public Works, Railways and Canals, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Secretary of State, Governor General's Secretary, Honorary Advisory Council, (Marine, Post Office, Privy Council, and Trade and Commerce. It would have been completed also in Customs and Inland Revenue but for the illness of the deputy. It is almost complete in Immigration and Colonization. So my hon. friend will see that the application of the classification is rapidly approaching completion.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We desire to have the classification when we come to consider the Estimates of these departments, and I would ask my hon. friend if it might not be possible for the Government to print what they have and bring it down so that we may have an opportunity to study Ithe matter before we discuss the Estimates.


Newton Wesley Rowell: I shall be glad to consider the suggestion of the hon. gentleman, and I think that it may be possible to do what he proposes.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Can my hon. friend tell us what expense the classification has. involved?


Newton Wesley Rowell: There was the work of classification and its application to the service, and there was also the re-organization of the Printing Bureau, which was a distinct piece of work. Altogether, I think the expenditure amounted to approxi-



mately $14'0,000; that is, including the whole thing. I have not the figures by me, but I think that what I have given is near the mark.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The minister is under the impression that it amounts to $140,000?


Newton Wesley Rowell: Yes, covering both the re-classification and the re-organization of the Printing Bureau. That is my present impression.
Mr. MACKENZIE King: I think there were a number of experts retained by the Government in connection (with the reclassification. Can the minister tell us what was paid to these men?


Newton Wesley Rowell: I have just given the figure. The full information has been given to Parliament already in answer to questions by some hon. members.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: A question was asked as to the personnel of this organization and where the experts came from, but I am not sure that the question I have just asked has been answered, and I should like to obtain the information.


Newton Wesley Rowell: That question was
answered too. It was answered this session and at the previous session. The firm who were employed were Arthur Young & Company, whose headquarters are at Chicago.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The firm sent their men here. Who were the persons that came to Ottawa?


Newton Wesley Rowell: Mr. Myers was the man in general charge here throughout the period of re-organization, and Mr. Griffen-hagen was the superior officer who came here and assisted from time to time in connection with the work. Under Mr. Myers there were, of course, the necessary associates to assist in carrying on the work.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Does the minister know what Mr. Myers' first name is?


Newton Wesley Rowell: No; I cannot recall it at the moment.
9 p.m. The CHAIRMAN:	Shall the
. clause carry?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Not yet, Mr. Chairman.


Georges Henri Boivin: The unanimous consent of the committee must be obtained if we are to enter upon a discussion which would be strictly relevant upon the Estimates but which is certainly irrelevant to

the clause under consideration. The question as to who prepared the classification and what was paid for the work has undoubtedly no bearing on the clause now before the committee. The purpose of the clause is to make the salaries of civil servants retroactive.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I shall not press the question now, but I may intimate to the minister that we shall expect the information which is now sought when we come to consides the Estimates.


Newton Wesley Rowell: I shall be glad to give that information then. Had I expected that the question would be raised now I would have been prepared to answer it in detail.


John Howard Sinclair: I do not like the construction of subsection (3) which says that any moneys required to be paid for the purpose of carrying out the provisions "of the next preceding subsection" shall be payable out of any moneys appropriated by Parliament for the purpose. I do not think this subsection is necessary because we already have a section in the original Act providing for the payment of these employees. Section 24 says that temporary employees shall only be paid out of the moneys specially provided by Parliament for the purpose. That gives Parliament considerably more control than it would have under this subsection, and it is quite sufficient to cover all cases. I quite understand that the minister is providing for a certain class of people appointed within certain dates, and I am raising no question so far as that is concerned; but in regard to temporary employees in general, I think that section 24 of the Act is sufficient. We should not substitute for it a section which means pretty nearly the same thing but which is indefinite and does not give Parliament the same control as section 24.


Newton Wesley Rowell: My hon. friend refers to section 24. He will see that the section with which we are now dealing covers more than temporary employees; it deals with all employees- in the public service, and the effect of the section is to make the classification apply from the year 1919 so as to give all employees in the public service the benefit of any increases in salary which the classification provides. The commission, after considering the matter, deemed it desirable to include a clause such as this. By reason of the amendment this subsection will have to toe amended to read "Under the provisions of this section", instead of "under the provisions of the next preceding

subsection". In regard to the objection raised by my hon. friend, I see no harm in this clause. We have to come down with an Estimate and the money necessary to pay the additional amounts which will be called for will be paid out of any sum which Parliament may vote for the purpose.
_ NTr. MACKENZIE KING: That is retaining the control of Parliament over public funds.


Mr.   KOWELL@: Absolutely. In the Civil Service Act of 1908 a section was inserted which authorized the payment out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of any increased amounts that might be payable by reason of the application of the classification. It was suggested we might insert a similar clause in the Bill but after consideration we decided to bring down an Estimate to cover any increased amounts even although we might not be able to tell the House just the exact amount required. But we decided, after consideration, to bring down an Estimate to cover any increased amounts even though we might not be able to tell tihe House the exact sum; we decided that we would ask Parliament for a lump sum to cover whatever these increases might be. This preserves the absolute control of Parliament over the money required.


Frank S. Cahill: Could the minister give us any idea as to the number of people that are affected by this change in the classification?


Newton Wesley Rowell: All the civil servants are affected by the change in classification, but that does not mean that all civil servants will get an increase in pay. I cannot say hoiw many will get increased pay, because personally I have not gone over the application of the classification to the service. There are 48,000 civil servants, permanent and temporary, in all the departments of the service, inside1 and outside, exclusive of seasonal employees, the workers on docks, public works, etc,, the men who are paid the current rate of wages, and-


William Daum Euler: Does this Bill provide for the case of the postal employees who asked for consideration?


Newton Wesley Rowell: It does.


John Howard Sinclair: Will the minister, when he has leisure, give an exact statement to the House as to the number of employees in each of the departments. I understood him to question the criticism I made the other day, when I spoke on 200J
the Budget, in reference to the number of employees that have been appointed by the Government, or the Civil Service Commission, since the Armistice was signed. I asked. some quesions on the subject some weeks ago and received an answer from the Secretary of State. It was not my statement, it was the statement the Government gave to me through the Secretary of State, that since the Armistice the Civil Service Commission have appointed 4,176 permanent employees and 22,954 temporary employees, making in all 27,130. The Secretary of State (Mr. Burrell) was present when I made the statement and offered no objection. I explained, when I read those figures, that the answer also contained the statement that certain of those employees were appointed for a short time. I followed the matter up iby putting another question asking how many temporary employees were still on the pay-roll. I received an answer to that question only to-day, and according to that answer there are" still 6,064 on the pay-roll. I am reading these figures in order that I may not be misunderstood in any way, because I want to be perfectly fair and do not wish to quote any figures that I do not believe to be correct. The minister, who is a very truthful man himself, hinted the other day that T was not adhering to the exact facts in regard to the matters that I referred to in my speech on the Budget, but I gave the information that had been supplied to me by the Government as plainly and honestly as I could; I was not going outside the figures that had been given me by the Government. Now I want to give the revised figures to show just what the Government say in their latest *statement as to what the number is. The number is stated in the return furnished to me as 6,064, and the document goes on to say:
Tn the above list the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment is not included, as that department is no longer under the Civil' Service Commission. The number of appointments to this department in the original figures of 22 -954 was 2,747, leaving 20,207 of which 6.064 are still on the pay-roll of the Government as temporary employees.
This is signed by Mr. William Foran, Secretary of the Civil Service Board, but the return is very incomplete. Now if you add toge/ther the 1,257 appointed by the Soldiers' Settlement Board, the 275 on the staff of the Pensions Commissioners and the 4.176 permanent appointments you get 12,004 as the number appointed since

the Armistice. This is a very large number, yet ilt does not include the *whole number that have (been appointed, because we have been informed that it does not include the employees of the Government railways, the Government Merchant Marine, and the Taxation Branch of the Finance Department. So it appears by the revised statement of the Government that something in the neighbourhood Of twelve *thousand employees, temporary and permanent, have been appointed by the Civil (Service Board to the various public departments since the Armistice. The minister now says that there are 48,000 employees altogether in the service of the 'Government. Consequently the employees have been increased since the date of the Armistice by 25 per cent. I would like to bring this matter to the attention of the minister, that if it is true that about 12,000 new civil servants have been appointed since the Armistice, it means an enormous addition to the Civil Service. As I said before if you credit them with $1,000 apiece each year, you increase the expenditure of this country by $12,000,000 a year; and if you allot them $2,000 apiece, which is nearer the mark, you increase that expenditure by $24,000,000 a year. I submit that that is a very large increase indeed, and that my hon. friend will have to do little more explaining before he will satisfy the people of Canada that it was necessary to make such an enormous increase in the staff of civil servants since the date of the Armistice.


Newton Wesley Rowell: I do not want to review the Budget debate; strictly speaking my hon. friend's remarks are out of order, but I did not want to interrupt him. The hon. member has referred to the answer which he received in the House when the question was asked as to the number of appointments that had been made. When the answer was given, the Secretary of State added that among those who were appointed temporarily, "many thousands were for short periods of less than thirty days." Notwithstanding that information given to my hon. friend he stated that he estimated at least 25,000 were continued in the public service and he figured the average salary would be $2,000 per individual per year, making an increase of $50,000,000 in the annual charge for the Civil 'Service. Now I gave the facts to the House the other night and showed that the hon. member's estimate was without any foundation in fact. It is quite true a large number have been employed since the Armistice 'but

where the appointment is for a week or a month or two or three months, and bearing in mind the constant change in employees on public works, the wonder is that the number has not been larger. The departments are constantly demobilizing, are constantly letting men go and reducing the staffs. The personnel on Public Works is constantly changing. The question is not how many men have been employed, but what has been the actual increase in the Civil Service during the period. I gave the House the other night the number employed at the present time. I showed the difference between the two periods and I explained how many had been added and how many had been discharged. My hon. friend's statement was entirely incorrect and wholly beside the mark as can be ascertained by a review of the figures I gave in my address on the Budget.


John Howard Sinclair: I have taken the statement from the figures which I received to-day from the Government. If I had received those figures before I made my speech on the Budget I would have used them. At the time I first asked the question I got a very prompt answer-within three or four days-of the number of permanent and temporary civil servants that had been appointed since the Armistice. But when I followed the matter up with a second question-because as my hon. friend said the information was somewhat indefinite owing to the fact that certain men had only been employed for a short time-and inquired how many of these twenty thousand, odd temporary employees were still on the Government's pay-roll, I got no answer to the question. The matter went on from day to day, and finally the question was put down as an order for return. I only obtained that return this morning. So I think my hon. friend will admit I am treating him and the Government very fairly, and I am putting the return on record to show what the Government say now in regard to the number of appointments they have made. It is not cleared up. We know how many appointments they have made, and I still hold to the opinion I expressed before, that with an over-crowded Civil Service at the date of the Armistice these 12,000 new appointments cannot be justified.


Frank S. Cahill: Do I understand the minister will have to bring down Supplementary Estimates covering this item?


Newton Wesley Rowell: Yes.


Frank S. Cahill: How soon does he expect to submit those Supplementary Estimates to the House? It is now within ten days or two weeks before the end of the session.


Newton Wesley Rowell: It will be wdthin a week or ten days before the end of the session at any event.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I have had complaints from civil servants outside of the city of Ottawa, janitors of post offices and other public buildings, that they have not received any bonus for April and May of this year. Is there any explanation for this delay? Will those janitors benefit by the classification?


Newton Wesley Rowell: I cannot say at present whether they will get more or not, as I have not the classification before me. With reference to the bonus, as my hon. friend is aware, the bonus vote passed this House only last month, and the cheque going out for June will carry the bonus to which those men are entitled.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Newton Wesley Rowell: I move to further amend clause 5 by striking out in line 48 on page 2 of the Bill the words "the next preceding subsection," and substituting therefor the words "this section."


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Section as amended agreed to.
On the title:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Before the title carries I would like to draw attention to the fact that this Bill is in the same category as the long list I mentioned the other day of legislation to amend legislation passed in the previous session, which legislation in turn was to amend legislation of the session still preceding. This is "An Act to amend the Civil Service Act, 1918, and the Civil Service Amendment Act, 1919." I am pointing this out in the hope that next session the Government will not bring in another amendment to this Act. Most of the time of this session has been taken up in amending legislation hastily prepared.


Newton Wesley Rowell: My hon. friend has said on former occasions that there are some men of Conservative or Tory characteristics on this side of the House, but I am afraid he is the greatest Tory of all. He is apparently one of those who think we ought not t.o move forward at all and that if legislation is once passed it must be like the laws of the Medes and Persians, unchangeable. As we move
ahead we must have amendments to meet changed conditions.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am not objecting to change, but I do object to making this Parliament a sort of repair shop for defective legislation.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill as amended reported.
On motion of Hon. Mr. Rowell for the third reading:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think the
third reading had better stand.


Newton Wesley Rowell: We have promised that
the Bill should be expedited as much as possible so that the service might receive the additional amounts payable to them under this legislation, but of course if my hon. friend has any objection I cannot ask for the third reading.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have no objection to the third reading at the next sitting of the House, but at present the attendance is not very large, and it seems to me it would be better now not to proceed further.
Motion stands.



SUPPLY.

[Stage Direction]
House again in Committee of Supply. Mr. Boivin in the Chair.
Public "Works-Chargeable to Income-Public buildings Nova Scotia, $42,000.
['Yes. I move that the committee rise and report progress.\nProgress reported.\nOn the motion of Rt. Hon. Mr. Doherty the House adjourned at 11.30 p.m.\nMonday, June 7, 1920.']
William Stevens Fielding: I understand that there are no new buildings in this appropriation; it is all repairs and improvements?


John Dowsley Reid: Yes. Every appropriation for new buildings in the Estimates last year was struck out, and, so far as I know, what is before us now is simply for repairs or for completing work already started, such as in the case of the drill hall at Amherst. The building has been completed and this vote is for the sidewalks and grading around the building.


William Stevens Fielding: If it is the settled
policy of the Government that they will not this year grant appropriations for any new buildings, I shall not bring forward some claims which I would otherwise make in that connection.


John Dowsley Reid: That was the policy
when these Estimates were made up, and so far as I know there has been no change.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The minister
says that this vote is to pay for gradings

and sidewalks. Twenty-five thousand dollars seems to be a good deal to pay out for gradings and sidewalks in connection with one building.


John Dowsley Reid: This amount is required to cover the cost of waterproofing the basement walls, asphalt floors in the main hall, sidewalks and gradings, $21,500; superintendence, $3,500; total $25,000.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: When was
this drill hall started?


John Dowsley Reid: The building was completed in 1914. This work that we are now providing for has been held up during the war.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Is it customary to put concrete pavings in drill halls?


John Dowsley Reid: It is the custom to
put in asphalt floors, yes.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Was this building sufficiently advanced to be used during the war?


John Dowsley Reid: Yes, the Militia, had it in use.


Mr. OOPP:: To what use is it being put now? ,


John Dowsley Reid: It is under the charge of the Militia Department. In the re-organization of the Militia I suppose they will use it for militia purposes.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: This building, the minister says, was used for militia purposes during the war. To spend $25,000 now to put it into shape seems to be a poor sort of economy.


John Dowsley Reid: The building was not completed owing to the large war expenditures, but it cannot be left in its present state; it will have to be completed.


Mr. COPP:: A great many demands for public buildings throughout Canada have to be refused because of the lack of money. Now, here is a drill hall that was finished in 1914. If during the war, when troops weere quartered there, this building could get along without the grading and paving and sidewalks that are now proposed to be put in,- it seems to me that this appropriation might well be devoted to the erection of public buildings in some other places where they are really needed. My hon. friend says that this building is being used for militia purposes. No soldiers are quartered there; there is no general militia work going on; there are no training camps in the vicinity. There seems to be no use for the building. Why spend

$25,000 at this time to put down sidewalks and pavings around this drill hall? I think the minister should give the committee a little more information before this item passes.


John Dowsley Reid: The Militia Department have asked that this building be completed. There is water in the cellar and if something is not done the building may be injured or destroyed. Besides, it is the custom to complete the sidewalks and grading around all public buildings. We are only completing work that must be done in connection with this building if it is to be used at all.


Arthur Bliss Copp: Does my hon. friend want
us to understand that there is water in the cellar because there is no sidewalk around the building? Does he want us to understand that during the past six years there has been water in the cellar and no proper drainage was put in when the building was constructed? The town of Amherst adjoins my own town, and from the information I have it does seem to me that if for six years we could get along without a sidewalk and without cement paving around this magnificent building we might get along for a year or two longer and use this money in places where its application is badly needed.
Sydney Quarantine Station-repairs and improvements, $5,000.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I understand that the minister has received a great many requests this year for the enlargement of this quarantine station. It has always been too small, and I hope that it will be made larger as soon as possible. As a matter of fact a new station would be much in the public interest.


John Dowsley Reid: We have decided not to go on with any new works during the present year if we can possibly avoid it. We are merely putting in the votes for upkeep and trying to keep the buildings that we have in as good repair as possible pending the making of extensions or the erection of such new buildings as may be necessary.
St. John-Dominion buildings-improvements, etc., $7,'000.	.


Arthur Bliss Copp: What are the buildings to
which this vote is to be applied?


John Dowsley Reid: Post office on Prince
William street; customs house on Prince William street; old post office on Prince William street; savings bank on Princess

street; St. John West post office on Union street.	.


Arthur Bliss Copp: What is the old post office
building used for now?


John Dowsley Reid: Customs, I understand, and Public Works Engineer.
Maritime provinces generally-Dominion public buildings-improvements, repairs, etc., $25,'000.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I notice there is no appropriation specially for Prince Edward Island. That seems to me a great oversight. As this item relates to public works for the Maritime Provinces generally, I should like to say a word on behalf of Prince Edward Island. I appreciate what the minister said a moment ago about the Government's intention not to provide for any new pubic buildings this year. That being so, I should certainly take the same view as the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding); but I should like to call the attention of the minister to the necessity for a public building at the village of O'Leary and one at the town of Alberton in Prince County, Prince Edward Island. Both of these localities are important business communities and distributing centres, and there is considerable need for adequate facilities and accommodation. I should be obliged, when the minister considers estimates for public building in the future, should he ever have occasion so to do, if he would make a point of looking into the needs of both these localities.


John Dowsley Reid: My memorandum shows that repairs in Prince Edward Island come out of this general appropriation.
Quebec-Granby public building, alterations and improvements, $18,000.
Mr. GEO. :H. BOIVIN (Shefford) (Mr. Steele in the Chair): Mr. Chairman I may not be in order in referring to the Budget debate to answer the question then put to the hon. member for Brome (Mr. MciMas-ter). The query was: "Where is Granby?" I will not attempt to do so because hon. members know well where Granby is situated but they may not be equally conversant with the fact that the amount mentioned in the Estimates for alterations, repairs and improvements to the public building located in that city is very urgently needed. Before I ask the hon. the minister when the citizens of Granby may expect the long hoped-for and much-needed repairs to the local post office, I might be allowed to say that this building was erected in or about the year 1900 when the population
of the village of Granby was lees than 4,000. Since that time the village has become a city and now has a population of about
8,000	without taking into consideration the large farming community in the immediate vicinity. The post office has never been enlarged, and hundreds of our citizens, who desire to do so, are unable to secure and rent post office boxes. We should have a city mail delivery, but the citizens of Granby are patriotic and they realize that we must not ask for this convenience just at the present time. We have at Granby a large number of factories and the proprietors and managers of some of those more recently established have to apply to the general delivery wicket for their daily mail for the very simple reason that it is impossible for them to secure a box or drawer in the post office. The evening train arrives quite late and after the heavy mail is distributed, there is only about one half hour left to deliver the mail to the public before the wicket is closed for the night. Several merchants, and factory managers, and hundreds of citizens, are obliged to get their mail during that one half-hour with the result that the part of the building which is open to the public is absolutely packed and jammed at that particular time. It becomes absolutely unsanitary, and while our male residents fight their way through the crowd to reach their boxes or the general delivery wicket, our ladies and young girls are obliged to wait until the following day before they can secure any letters addressed to them. I cannot impress too strongly upon the department the necessity of making these repairs at once. I can assure the hon. minister that I was greatly pleased when the amount of $6,500 was voted last year for alterations and improvements to the building but I realized then, as the department has undoubtedly since ascertained, that the amount was not sufficient and I am glad that the work was delayed until the proper amount could be voted for the purpose. If the plans are not already made, I would suggest that the post office proper be extended to the entire ground floor of the building, that the stairway be removed and that the store-room for small parcels held in bond by the collector of customs which now occupies a large portion of the ground floor be placed in the upper part of the building. I feel that without enlarging the building otherwise than by adding an extra storey to the extension, the needs of the people of the city of Granby can be met for a few years and that we may live in hopes that as

soon as the finances of the country are in better condition we may be entitled to the privilege which has already been granted by this and former governments to other cities much less important than the city of Granby, where the mails are delivered to the homes, offices and business places of their citizens. Now may I ask the minister what is the nature of the contemplated repairs, when will they be commenced and when may we hope to see them completed?
Mr. J. D. REliD: Not only as regards this appropriation, but as regards all appropriations in the Public Works Department for repairs to public buildings and wharves, the requests were made in every case by the department in control of the building or wharf. The Public Works Department has looked into each matter very carefully, and there is no doubt whatever that the repairs are urgently needed and should be made. This appropriation is required for the building of an additional storey over the existing extension of the public building at Granby to provide increased accommodation on the ground floor for the post office and also for general alterations to the interior of the building, including the removal of the staircase and the installation of toilets. The size of the extension over which the additional storey is to be built is 21 feet 6 inches by 37 feet 6 inches. The estimated cost is as follows:	One storey
addition over extension, $12,000; alterations to interior fittings, $4,000; contingencies and superintendence, $2,000; total, $18,000.
These repairs are urgently needed in every case. A speech similar to the one my hon. friend has1 made could be made, I suppose, by any member of this House in connection with any of the Estimates I am asking the House to pass. I should like to have these Estimates put through, tenders called for, and the work started as soon as possible because if I have to wait for some time, half the summer will be gone. My intention is to instruct the deputy minister to call for tenders and proceed with the work at once so far as these repairs are concerned.


Georges Henri Boivin: I hope the committee will not construe my' remarks as an attempt to Abstract the passage of this item and on behalf of my constituents I desire to thank the minister for having once more placed it in the Estimates.	1


Arthur Bliss Copp: 
Jean-Joseph Denis: Will this item cover the
cost of the whole work?


John Dowsley Reid: It is proposed to build five wings at a cost of $100,000 each. That would make $500,000.
Ontario-Dominion public buildings-improve-merits, repairs, etc., $35,000.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What is this for?


John Dowsley Reid: It is for the purpose of keeping in repair the buildings throughout the whole province.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Is it the customary vote?


John Dowsley Reid: Yes.
Hamilton Post Office-improvements, $8,000.


John Dowsley Reid: This is for a mezzanine floor for the whole ground floor of the Hamilton Post Office and to provide increased accommodation for the postal employees. The building is overcrowded and in a very bad state. We had a report only a week or so ago. It is absolutely necessary that something be done to protect the health of the employees.


Isaac Ellis Pedlow: Has the minister, in these Ontario items, an appropriation for an extension to the post office building at Renfrew?


John Dowsley Reid: These items are not for new buildings or extensions. The $35,000 item is a general vote to be used for repairs to buildings throughout the whole province. When the item is passed, we shall not have power or authority to use any of that money for new work or extensions.


Isaac Ellis Pedlow: I understand that application has been made to the department for an extension to the Renfrew post office. The accommodation at the Renfrew post office is entirely inadequate for the business that is done, and I understand that the postmaster has made application for an extension to the building in order to provide proper accommodation for the work that has to be carried on. I understand also that plans have been prepared by the department and that an inspector of the department has surveyed the situation and recommended that the work be proceeded with. The condition at the Renfrew post office is pretty much the same as the conditions as represented by my hon. friend for Shefford at the Granby post office. The present building was erected when the population of Renfrew was about 4,000 people; to-day the population is in the neighbourhood of
7,000	people, and in addition to the extra work necessitated by the increased population there is also the work that is made necessary on account of the rural mail service, Renfrew being the centre for a large district. In view of these considerations, the present accommodation is not adequate. If there is no item in the Estimates for this purpose I appeal to the minister for consideration of this request from the Postmaster at Renfrew for this additional accommodation which is required ' there, which I understand has been reported on favourably by an inspector of the department.	i; |<jj


John Dowsley Reid: I have had a request
from Renfrew for such an extension as the hon. member advocates and we have a report which would justify proceeding with the work. When the Supplementary Estimates are under consideration I hope toi be able to do something in connection with the Renfrew case, which is among very many other urgent cases that have come before us.
Mr. MAiNION: As it is in order now for members to say a few words in behalf of their constituencies, I think it is time for me to say something in connection with a post office in my riding which I have been pressing upon the Government now for about four years, or at least since the Union

Government name into power. The town of Port Frances has a population of about
4,000	and it has no public building of any kind. Its Immigration office, its Indian office and its post office and customs office are all located in ramshackle buildings which are entirely unsatisfactory. At various times I have taken this matter up, having brought it to the attention of previous ministers of public works as well as to the attention of the present minister, and they have all been very kind in promising early consideration of the question when spending any money on public buildings in the country, 'but nothing has been done. I should like at this moment once again to press upon the minister the desirability of doing something in this particular case, and I should like to have him give me an answer similar to that which he gave the hon. member (Mr. Pedlow). If any consideration is to be given to these smaller centres so far as the erection of new buildings is concerned, I insist that the town of Fort Frances, which is in dire need of attention, be not forgotten.


John Dowsley Reid: I can assure the hon. member that in any consideration that may be given to the question of putting up new buildings the town of Fort Frances will not be overlooked.
Hamilton Postal Station "B", $25,000.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What is this for?


John Dowsley Reid: This $25,000 is required to complete the construction of the building for postal station "B," on the south side of Barton street, immediately east of Stirton street. Description of building: Brick structure, 58 ft. 8 in. x 40 ft. 6 in., with annex 19 ft. 3 in. x 32 ft. 8 in; two stories and basement.


John Ewen Sinclair: When was this work started?


John Dowsley Reid: In 1919.
Kingston Royal Military College-Enlargement of Educational block, $2-6*5/00*0.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: This is a large item. Can the minister give us some information in regard to- it?
-Mr. J. D. REID: This building is under construction. The total amount of the contract is $326,884. To complete the -contract $210,000 is required; for fittings and furniture, $25,000; for sidewalks and concrete w-o-rk, $10,000; for superintendence, $20,000, making the total of $265,000 which is now asked for I have seen the building, which is a wing of the Royal Military College, and it -justifies the expenditure.


Albert James Smith Copp: When was the contract let?


John Dowsley Reid: The date of the contract is April 12, 1919.


Jean-Joseph Denis: It seems to me that just after the war this huge expenditure might have been avoided. This is a very large contract in these hard times, and for my part I am not satisfied that sufficient explanation has been given to show the necessity for this expenditure.


John Dowsley Reid: The matter was all discussed last session when the Estimates were up. The contract has been let and the work proceeded with. In a reply to a letter fro-m the Deputy Minister of Public Works of June 7, inquiring as to the necessity of a list of works requested by the Department of Militia and Defence to toe noted in the Supplementary Estimates, the Deputy Minister of Militia and Defence, -under date of 23rd of June, states as follows:
I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 7th inst., and to inform you that the various items contained in your letter have been carefully gone into and it is requested that the following items which are urgently required be provided for in your Supplementary Estimates:
Enlargement of Educational Block. . $150,000
Complete new dormitory, adding two
wings	 100,00-0
It is hoped that every effort will be made to provide these items.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What is the
date of that letter?


John Dowsley Reid: June 7, 1918. There was an item in the Estimates in connection with this matter last year, and the 'building must be very nearly completed by now.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What is the total cost?


John Dowsley Reid: The total cost is


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would point out to the minister that that is about one-third of a million dollars and a very large sum of money to expend on a building that is primarily to serve -military purposes. Can the minister give us any idea as to why the authorities require a building of this size at this particular ti-me?


John Dowsley Reid: I do not think there is any member in the House iwho will realize the importance of the Royal Military College in Kingston more than the leader of the Opposition. Personally, I think that the Royal Military College in Kingston is one of the best institutions in Canada, and it does not serve military purposes exclusively. The young men who are turned

out of this institution are a credit to Canada, and it is important that the institution 'be enlarged. Of course, it is too late now to decide whether or not the work should be proceeded with, for the reason that $150,000 was voted in last year's Estimates, when the matter was thoroughly discussed. Parliament passed the item, the contract was let and the work is now pretty well completed.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not wish to be understood as arguing that the contract should be cancelled, or as in any way reflecting on the Military College, because I entertain the highest opinion of the work being done at that institution. As the minister has said the services performed by the college extend far beyond the immediate work it does in connection with the militia, although in that connection also it has been very useful. The point-1 wish to bring out is that these expenditures seem to have been contemplated since the termination of the war. It is rather remarkable that public buildings, in the nature of a drill hall at Amherst and this extension to the Military College, should have been undertaken since the signing of peace, whereas public buildings of a different nature, and for other purposes, are neglected altogether.


Jean-Joseph Denis: As the minister has just said it is too late to repudiate the contract, but the question I would ask is: Why were these Supplementary Estimates not embodied in the main Estimates last year? Why were all these Supplementary Estimates, including probably this particular item, brought down at practically the last miinute during the dying hours of the session when $40,000,000 was voted in the course of three or four hours? That is the very practice I have always opposed-although I am not alone in that.-and shall continue to oppose. These Estimates are passed by Parliament without any accurate knowledge of them; if Parliament did have sufficient knowledge the items would not be allowed to pass in the way they have been. The country has no money to spare for such outlays; and moreover when the cost of building has gone up a hundred and fifty and even two hundred per cent above what it was before the war it is no time to undertake new buildings unless there is absolute necessity for them.


Isaac Ellis Pedlow: Before this item is carried I would like to ask the minister if the contract for this extension to the Royal Military College was let by tender, or is
being carried out on the cost-plus basis; and who the contractors are?


John Dowsley Reid: It was let by tender, $326,884 being the lowest offer. The contract was awarded to the Piggot.t-Healey Construction Company, Hamilton.


Frank S. Cahill: How does it come that only $150,000 was voted for the work last year and a tender was accepted for $326,000?


John Dowsley Reid: The estimate that is submitted to Parliament is supposed to be the amount that would be expended during that particular year; it is never the custom to put in the Estimates the amount the work is estimated to cost. It was estimated that $150,000 would he expended during the year ending March 31,


Frank S. Cahill: Will the vote which is now being taken complete the work, or will the minister come back next year and ask for an additional appropriation? Personally, I would like to encourage education in Ontario as much as possible. Anything that will bring light to Ontario is to be welcomed as a good thing, but we want to know where the expenditure for this particular undertaking will end.


John Dowsley Reid: Out of the $150,000 voted last year about $125,000 is all that would be expended. This year we estimated that $210,000 would be required to complete the contract. Adding this amount to the $125,000 would make 335,000. However, the work may not cost that much. Then there is: Fittings and furniture, $25,000; sidewalks, grading, etc., $10,000; contingencies and superintendence, $20,000. That is the estimate, and we .feel that we have got sufficient to complete the whole work, and probably more.


Frank S. Cahill: Could the minister give an estimate as to what the cost of superintendence amounts to, exclusive of the contingencies?


John Dowsley Reid: In submitting the
Estimates we generally put in about 10 per cent o'f the cost, but it is estimated that 8 per cent would be ample for this particular work, and it may not amount to that.
King-sville, Public Buildings, $1,700.


Frank S. Cahill: Where is Kingsville?


John Dowsley Reid: In the county of Essex. An item to construct the public building in Kingsville first appeared in the Esti-ments in 1910. It reappeared in the Estimates of 1910, 1911, 1912. In the last-named

year the Public Works Department expropriated the site which was part of the Windsor, Essex and Lakeshore Rapid Railway Company's property. The property was encumbered and legal proceedings have been in progress ever since. The proceedings as to title were only completed a few months ago and this amount is to pay the award ifor the property, $1,500 and $200 legal expenses, making altogether $1,700. It is not the intention of the Government to go on with the public building this year.
Oshawa, new public building, $5,000.


John Dowsley Reid: This vote is required to complete the construction of the new examining warehouse at the existing public building. The items entering into it are: To complete the contract, $2,000; fittings and furniture, $2,000; sidewalks and grading, $500; contingencies, etc., $500, making a total of $5,000. The contractors are the Russell-Na,vin Construction Company, Toronto.
Ottawa Departmental Buildings; to connect with Central Heating Plant, 511,000.


Frank S. Cahill: What buildings are to be connected?


John Dowsley Reid: The East Block, West Block, the Langevin Block, the Post Office and the Supreme Court Building.


Frank S. Cahill: Are the connecting tunnels not already built?


John Dowsley Reid: They are already built, this is to connect them all.
Ottawa Department Building, fittings, etc., $ 100,005.


Frank S. Cahill: What is this vote for?


John Dowsley Reid: The vote is required for the purchase and installation of steel filing cases, adjustable roller book shelves, steel drawers, and so forth, required for offices in the Parliament and departmental buildings, Ottawa. The increase of $25,000 in this appropriation is due to additional fittings necessary owing to the readjustment of offices, particularly in the Hunter building, the Daly building and the new Parliament Buildings, and also to alterations and additions to the fittings in the postal note division of the Post Office Department, The estimated cost of $15,300 was requested by the Post Office Department at different dates.
Mr.-CAHILL:	Where are those fittings
usually bought?


John Dowsley Reid: These different fittings are made by two Canadian companies only. Of course, all this work is done through the Purchasing Commission, not by the department.


Isaac Ellis Pedlow: Why is it that the department still insists on supplying the public service with steel cabinets? I had occasion to take exception to the purchase of these cabinets last year, when I pointed out that on a contract for 500 steel cabinets a saving could be effected of $7,000 by purchasing wooden cabinets of the same dimensions at $27 each, instead of $41 charged for the steel cabinet. I also obtained information at that time that the department had during the same year ordered about 2,500 of these steel cabinets at an average price of $49, entailing an increased expenditure over and above the cost of the same style of cabinets in wood of $55,000,-or in all an additional expenditure of $62,000 in that year As a result of the representations I then made the firm I interested myself in obtained a contract for a number of wooden cabinets, with a resultant saving to the department. I am at a loss to understand why the department still insists on buying the more expensive article. I made an investigation at the time of the claims made by the manufacturers of the steel cabinets that their product was fireproof, but I found that those claims were not well founded. Those cabinets are made of tin, and are merely a cooking apparatus for the documents contained in them. After the fire which destroyed the old Parliament Buildings it was found that the contents of the steel filing cabinets were charred beyond recognition, while the contents of the wooden cabinets were intact where the cabinets themselves were not entirely consumed, showing clearly that the wooden cabinet was preferable to the steel. But apart from that consideration is the enormous saving to be effected by purchasing wooden cabinets. I think that in the interests of economy the department should look into this matter and at all events give the wooden cabinets a trial in preference to purchasing the more expensive article, for I am sure that on investigation it -will be found that the claims I am making on behalf of the wooden cabinet will be fully substantiated.


John Dowsley Reid: This is the first time the matter has been brought to my attention. I will look into it and see if the saving suggested by the hon. member can he effected.


Isaac Ellis Pedlow: On that item alone a
saving of $62,000 eo-uld have been made on one year's purchases.
iMr. CABELL:	How much money was
spent last year on these cabinet", and what price was paid?


Mr.  J. D. RETD@: The deputy minister
tells me that last year's vois was all spent. Tenders were called for, but I have not got them here. I can give them later on some other Estimates.


Frank S. Cahill: Perhaps we had better let this item stand.


John Dowsley Reid: I promise the Iron, member that I will supply him with the information.


Frank S. Cahill: That will be all right if my hon. friend does not forget.


John Dowsley Reid: I will not forget.


William Stevens Fielding: The hon.. member mentioned the Parliament Buildings among others. I thought it was understood that the fittings and furniture for these buildings would come under the special vote. Is not that so?


John Dowsley Reid: The deputy minister tells me that some of these fittings are out of the general vote and some are out of the volte for the Parliament Buildings. These filing cases are kept in store and are handed out whenever they may be required in these or any other public buildings in Ottawa.


William Stevens Fielding: The hon. minister will remember that in the discussion which took place several weeks ago respecting the Parliament Buildings, the question was asked whether the furniture and fittings were included in the vote, and it was stated they were included. In fact, the question was raised whether or not the architect was not entitled' to a commission on the furniture and fittings. It seems important that they should be charged to one vote or the other.


John Dowsley Reid: There is quite a difference between the furniture of these buildings and filing cases installed iat a later period. The former are really part of the fittings of the buildings, but these cases are only put in when they are actually required, otherwise we would have to pay a commission to the architect.


Frank S. Cahill: One hundred thousand
dollars for filing oases seems to be an extraordinary amount of money. Wihat departments did these cases go to last year.
and under whose orders were they purchased?


John Dowsley Reid: To all the departments.


Frank S. Cahill: What is the basis? How do you get such an item as $175,000 one year and $100,000 another year for filing
cases?


John Dowsley Reid: The filing oases purchased under this vote go to all the departments. The cases are bought in large quantities and are kept in store ready to deliver to whatever department requires them. They could nolt be ordered singly or in small quantities as it would take too long to get them delivered.


Frank S. Cahill: What do they cost?


John Dowsley Reid: They cost $45 or $46 each.


Frank S. Cahill: Do I understand that if any department-say the Post Office Department-makes a requisition on the Public Works Department for 200 or 300 of these filing cases, the Public Works Department ascertains whether there is any necessity for the order? Or does it simply pass the requisition ion to the half-defunct Purchasing Board and ask them to get tenders? Where does the check come in?


John Dowsley Reid: I will tell the hon. gentleman the procedure. When the stock that we have on hand is reduced, tenders are called through the Purchasing Commission and the lowest tender is accepted. The filing cases required are then delivered and put in store under the control of the Public Works Department. If another department requires some of these filing cases, requisition is made on the Public Works Department, and the responsibility for the order rests on the head and deputy of the department making the requisition.


Frank S. Cahill: The matter, then, is dealt with as between the different departments. We ask the minister now for the prices that were paid the past year for these cases and the names of the firms from whom they were bought, but we are unable to get the information.


John Dowsley Reid: I shall be glad to let the item stand until I can get the information for my hon. friend.
Item stands.
Toronto-Poetal Station "A"-to complete, $425,000.


John Dowsley Reid: This amount is required
to complete the new terminal postal station

"A" forming part of the easterly wing of the new Union Station. The new Union Station is being built by the P. Lyall Construction Company, Limited, for the Toronto Terminal Railway company on a cost plus 3 per cent basis. Postal station A is a unit of the railway station, the Toronto Terminal Railway Company supervising its construction and charging the Government for the work. The Government also have an inspector there.


Frank S. Cahill: What is the work estimated to cost?


John Dowsley Reid: Estimated total cost, $1 414,908.40; cost to date $1,079,341. Balance to complete $335,567.40; overhead charges, $10,000; fittings and furniture, $50,000 [DOT] contingencies and superintendence, $30,000; total, $425,000. Hon. members will see that the work is pretty nearly completed.


Mr MURPHY:: Did I understand the minister to say that the work was being proceeded with by the P. Lyall Company on the basis of cost plus 3 per cent?


John Dowsley Reid: They are building the Toronto railway station.


Mr. MURPHY:: On that basis-cost plus 3 per cent?


John Dowsley Reid: Yes.
Portage la Prairie-enlargement and improvement ot public building, $30,'000.


Frank S. Cahill: What is the explanation of this item?


John Dowsley Reid: This amount is required for the erection of an addition to the public building, situated on Ann street on the corner of Saskatchewan Avenue. The estimated cost of the addition is $25,000; alterations and fittings, $3,000; contingencies, $2,000.


Frank S. Cahill: Would that not be considered almost a new building?


John Dowsley Reid: No, it is an addition.
Winnipeg-Postal	Station	"A"-improvemerits, $24,000.


John Dowsley Reid: This is for the installation of an electric elevator to replace an escalator at the west end of the building, $12,863; marquees at the east end of the building to protect the mail trucks, $1,500; two tractors, $8,000; contingencies, $1,637; total, $24,000.
British Columbia-Kamloops new public building, $26,'000.


Arthur Bliss Copp: What is this building for?


John Dowsley Reid: This is an appropriation for the erection of a new public building for
which a site was purchased during the present fiscal year.


Arthur Bliss Copp: Is it a new one?


John Dowsley Reid: This is a new building, and I shall have to look into the matter. We shall let this item stand.
Item 8tands.
Vancouver Dominion	buildings-improvements, repairs, etc., $10,000.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What is the
difference between "British Columbia Dominion public buildings " and " Vancouver Dominion public building "? This looks like a repetition of the same thing.


John Dowsley Reid: We have a special appropriation for public buildings in a large city, and then we have an appropriation for public 'buildings in the province.
Williams Head quarantine station-land-[DOT] including interest of 5 per cent from date of expropriation, $10,00'0.


Charles Murphy: What is the date of the expropriation?


John Dowsley Reid: This amount is required to pay for 18i acres of land expropriated from Mrs. A. T. Watt, on the 13th May, 1918:
Experimental farms-new buildings and improvements, renewals and repairs, etc., in connection with existing buildings, fittings, etc., $200,000.


Arthur Bliss Copp: Explain.


John Dowsley Reid: This appropriation is
required for the erection of new buildings and for improvements, renewals, repairs and so forth to existing buildings at the several experimental farms and stations established throughout the Dominion, and it is asked for by the Deputy Minister of Agriculture in a letter dated 15th January,
1920.	The $200,000 is made up as follows:
Ottawa and Tobacco division	
Charlottetown, P.E.I	_ ..
Kentville, N.S	
Nappan, N.S	
Fredericton, N.B	
Ste. Anne de la PocatiOre, P.Q	
Cap Rouge, P.Q	
Lennoxville, P.Q	
Morden, Man	*	
Brandon, Man	
Indian Head, Sask	
Rosthern, Sask	
Scott, Sask	
Lethbridge, Alta	
Lacombe, Alta	
Summerland. B.C	-	
Inverness, B.C	
Agassiz, B.C	
Sidney, B.C	
53,235
6,450
8,600
6,50'0
5,500
8,750
15,250
9.200 9,150
12,900
3,700
5,600
5,100
16,065
5,400
17,150
1,950
3.200 6,300
Total	$200,000
A comparatively small amount.


Arthur Bliss Copp: This is a pretty large item, covering suggested improvements in the different branch experimental farms as well as the Central Experimental Farm at Ottawa. Building operations will be very expensive during the present and the coming year, and these experimental farms and stations all constitute a very large bill of expense to the country without considering the cost of erection of new buildings. If you go through the Auditor General's Report, you will find that these branch experimental stations cost from $40,000 to $75,000 a year without any returns coming in. Therefore, under present conditions when the department has to refuse requests for the erection, in many places throughout the Dominion, of public buildings such as post offices and so forth, that are required to give ordinary and proper facilities, the minister might well pause when he is requested to spend $200,000 for the erection of buildings in experimental stations throughout the country. I understand that last year a barn and a new cellar were constructed at one of the experimental stations at fairly heavy expense. When the roots were gathered from this magnificent farm, costing the public something like $50,000 with returns amounting to something like $3,000 a year, the roots were placed in the cellar and when the first touch of frost came, they were all frozen and destroyed. If that is the way in which the business of experimental farms is to be carried on, and year after year we are to be asked to vote these large sums of money, I would draw the minister's attention to the fact that the people are not looking for the expenditure of money along these lines at the present time. The word "economize" has been suggested to the country and particularly to hon. gentlemen on this side of the House as regards all things. If the Government is going to economize, the acting Minister of Public Works might very well cut this item from the Estimates. I am sure there is no very great demand nor need for the expenditure of $200,009 on experimental stations throughout the Dominion, and this is simply piling up a very much heavier loss to the country than we would otherwise have. Let the minister visit the different experimental stations and compare the buildings and barns used there for experimental purposes with the buildings the ordinary farmer has to use on his farm. Yet the minister is asking these farmers to pay exorbitant taxation on their farms to keep up beautiful exhibits here and there throughout the Dominion like the Central
Experimental Farm which is used as a pleasure resort for certain individuals, and which is a very pleasant place in which to spend a holiday. This is a time when the Government is asking the people of the Dominion to delve down deep into their pockets, and deeper this year than ever before, for carrying on the operations of the Dominion and paying the interest on the enormous war debt that has been rolled up, whether rightly or wrongly, by extravagance or otherwise. This debt confronts us; the people have to pay it; they cannot build these fine showhouses; they cannot have conservatories filled with flowers for their enjoyment; and it is playing a little too much on the patience of the people of the Dominion to ask them to pay $200,000 so that few individuals may be able to visit these magnificent spots that are costing so much without a corresponding return to the revenues of the country.


John Dowsley Reid: Requisitions were sent in to the Deputy Minister of Agriculture showing what it was considered was actually required for repairs and necessary works in connection with carrying on these farms. The Deputy Minister of Public Works and his staff took the matter up with the Deputy Minister of Agriculture for the purpose of trying to cut these items down to the very smallest possible amount. This is what the Deputy Minister of Agriculture stated in reply to a letter from the Deputy Minister of Public Works:
In reply I would say that these Public Works' estimates, as originally sent in by the Director or Experimental Farms, amounted to nearly $700,00'0', but I cut down this sum to $20'0,000, and do not think I can possibly ask for less.
And so on. As regards the statement of the hon. member that the experimental farms are really of no benefit to the people of Canada, for that is really what his statement means-


Arthur Bliss Copp: I mean the benefit to the oountry does not correspond to the expenditure.


John Dowsley Reid: There is quite a difference of opinion as far as that is concerned. I believe these farms are of great value and that they are appreciated by the people. Some, if not all, of the Provincial Governments ,are undertaking this kind of work, although probably not on as large a scale. My experience has been that the farms have been of great benefit, and we must certainly keep them in repair. I think when the Estimates of the Department of Agriculture are before the committee that

would ibe the proper time to bring up the question whether we are receiving benefits corresponding with the expenditure involved in keeping up these farms. If the House thinks we are not receiving sufficient benefit the item, of course, should be struck out and the farms closed up, but personally I feel that the experimental farms are one of the last things that we should curtail expenditure on.


Albert James Smith Copp: 
John Dowsley Reid: 
Arthur Bliss Copp: 
Frank S. Cahill: Would the minister explain this item?	.


John Dowsley Reid: The Public Works
Department buys flags for all the public buildings throughout the Dominion.


Frank S. Cahill: What flag do they use?


John Dowsley Reid: The Union Jack


Ernest Lapointe: Not the Irish Republic flag?	.


John Dowsley Reid: No, just the Union
Jack.


Arthur Bliss Copp: Did you supply one for
Sackville public building?


John Dowsley Reid: EVery public building is supposed to have a flag.


Albert James Smith Copp: I would suggest that you
send down a flag flying a signal of distress for the Sackville post office.

'Mr. J. D. REID: We (will send you two.
Port Hood-Wharf repairs and extension, $7,00'0.


Mr. CHISHOLM:: Let me urge on the minister the importance of having this work attended to as speedily as possible. This item has been re-voted several times and I have brought the matter to the attention of the minister's predecessors. This is work that has been unduly neglected, and to put it in' the condition in which it was five years ago will cost $30,000. Had the work been done when it first called for attention a few hundred dollars would have been sufficient. The longer it is neglected the more it will Cost to put it in good shape. I trust the minister will attend to the matter without any delay. I want to inform him further that any work that is done on the shore must be done in June and July, otherwise it Is useless to spend any money there. Thousands of dollars have been mis-spent in connection with work there which was inopportunely done.


John Dowsley Reid: I agree with my hon. friend, .and that is why I want these small items, which are urgently required, to go through as expeditiously as possible. I hope the hon. member will help me to get them through.
Shenacadie-wharf, $12,000.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Is that contract let?


John Dowsley Reid: Yes. E. M. Dickson, of Louisburg, is the contractor. His contract was $11,831.30 and he was the lowest by a couple Of hundred dollars.
Prince Edward Island-Harbours and Rivers generally-Repairs and improvements, $14,000.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I notice there is no special reference to the deepening of the Narrows and I have had some correspondence in connection with the matter. I should like the minister to give me an *assurance that the work will be done. There is certain necessary dredging work to be done in The Narrows, in Prince county, to connect the deep water of Malpeque bay and Biddeford river with the deep water in Conway inlet, with the deep water in Conway river. Last summer the department made a survey of the locality.


John Dowsley Reid: May I point out to my hon. friend that this is not the proper time to bring forward that matter. That item comes under "dredging."
Mr. 'MACKENZIE KING: Will my hon. friend give me an assurance now that he will do the work?


John Dowsley Reid: I promise to give the matter very serious consideration.


John Ewen Sinclair: I would ask the minister if it is intended to spend any money on Graham's Run? There was a petition presented to the department last year asking that certain improvements be made there for the purpose of improving the boat harbour.


John Dowsley Reid: It is under consideration for the Supplementary Estimates, it is not in this vote.


John Ewen Sinclair: Do I understand that it is in the Supplementary Estimates?


John Dowsley Reid: It is under consideration in connection with those Estimates.
North Lake-Boat harbour, $27,000.


John Ewen Sinclair: Why was this amount not spent last year?


Mr. McISAAC:: I may point out that the contract was let late last fall and the work could not be proceeded with then. They were prepared for the work and afterwards got. the lumber. I understand that the work is now going on.


John Dowsley Reid: It is under contract.


John Ewen Sinclair: What was the date of the contract?


John Dowsley Reid: August 19, 1919.


John Howard Sinclair: What was the amount of the contract?


John Dowsley Reid: The contract amounted to approximately $25,500.
Wood Islands (P.E.I.)-repairs to breakwater, $'S0'0i.


John Ewen Sinclair: Has a contract been let for the work?


John Dowsley Reid: No, it is being done by days' labour.
Coeagne (N.B.)-repairs to wharf, $1,700.


Mr. LEGER:: On what v harf is this
money to be expended?


John Dowsley Reid: There is a wharf one mile to the north called, "Cotcagne Church Wharf." This is work that the hon. gentleman wished should be done.


Mr. ARGUE :: I notice that the total vote for repairs to wharves, bridges, breakwaters, and so forth, in New Brunswick, is $172,525. A few minutes ago we listened to one of the representatives from that province expatiating on the expenditure of $200,000 upon experimental farms throughout the Dominion.



I wish to say that I do not believe the Government could expend a dollar anywhere in the Dominion more profitably than they do on experimental farms. But when we come down to the matter of wharves and bridges, and that sort of public works, in the East, you never hear one word of complaint; the representatives from that part of Canada are always asking for more. I think it is about time that as much money was spent on experimental farms as is being voted for wharves and breakwaters.


Albert James Smith Copp: My hon. friend is a little late in speaking about experimental farms because the appropriation for that purpose has been passed. -Still if he wants to continue the discussion on it, I am prepared to do so. With regard to the items under consideration I am not asking for any more expenditures. I did not even ask the Minister of Public Works to insert in the Estimates the appropriations that are now being passed. I should, however, say to him that in so far as regards the public works that are now under way he might very well devote some of the money to establishing post offices here and there throughout the province of New Brunswick. That would be much more appreciated than the votes which have just been sanctioned. While I am on my feet I would like to ask the minister whether the works for which large sums have been voted will be carried out by contract?


John Dowsley Reid: In the case of every expenditure over $5,000 tenders must be called for.


Frank S. Cahill: Except in the case of ships.
Harbours and Rivers, Quebec, $519,400.


Charles Arthur Gauvreau: Before proceeding with these items I want to draw the minister's attention to the fact that there is no provision made for the completion of the wharf at the western end of Isle Verte. May I ask that the Minister of Public Works will look into the matter and insert $6,000 in the Supplementary Estimates for this purpose. Last session the then minister, Hon. Mr. Carvell, admitted the necessity for this work which is intended to help the islanders to transport their products promptly to the nearest market. These men are practically isolated and there is no means of transportation for them except by boat. Wharves have been started at both ends of the island, but at present it is impossible for the schooner which calls there to stop. The eastern wharf is 
under contract, and I was promised that the western wharf would foe completed this summer.


John Dowsley Reid: I have a great deal of sympathy for the people living on the shores and islands of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, who are far away from railway communication, and depend entirely upon navigation fo-r facilities to carry their fish and other commodities to market. I know the place that my hon. friend refers to, and realize the urgent necessity for the work. I have a note to make provision for pressing this work forward when we are making out the Supplementary Estimates, and I promise the hon. member I will do my part with my colleague to have the item to which he refers included with the other Estimates.


Charles Arthur Gauvreau: If the other ministers do as well as the Minister of Railways I am sure I shall get the appropriation.
Ontario-harbours and rivers-North Bayrepairs to wharfs, $80l0.


Mr. HARRISON:: I would like to know if there is a possibility of getting anything in the Supplementary Estimates this year for the shore protection at North Bay, in connection with which, I understand, an engineer was sent up to report. The whole of our park and the property of summer residents in that section will be washed away unless some protective work is undertaken this year.


John Dowsley Reid: I sent an engineer to North Bay to make a report, and he is still there. When I receive his report I will see if anything can be done.


William Stevens Fielding: Now, Mr. Chairman, I think we have done our eight hours' work and ought to be allowed to adjourn.


John Dowsley Reid: Yes. I move that the committee rise and report progress.
Progress reported.
On the motion of Rt. Hon. Mr. Doherty the House adjourned at 11.30 p.m.
Monday, June 7, 1920.